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THE  BARBOUR-PAGE  LECTURE 
FOUNDATION 

The  University  of  Virginia  is  indebted 
for  the  estabHshment  of  the  Barbour-Page 
Foundation  to  the  wisdom  and  generosity  of 
Mrs.  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  of  Washington, 
D.  C.  In  1907,  Mrs.  Page  donated  to  the 
University  the  sum  of  ?22,ooo,  the  annual 
income  of  which  is  to  be  used  in  securing 
each  session  the  deHvery  before  the  Univer- 
sity of  a  series  of  not  less  than  three  lectures 
by  some  distinguished  man  of  letters  or  of 
science.  The  conditions  of  the  Foundation 
require  that  the  Barbour-Page  lectures  for 
each  session  be  not  less  than  three  in  number; 
that  they  be  delivered  by  a  specialist  in  some 
branch  of  literature,  science,  or  art;  that  the 

V 


lecturer  present  in  the  series  of  lectures  some 
fresh  aspect  or  aspects  of  the  department  of 
thought  in  which  he  is  a  speciahst;  and  that 
the  entire  series  deHvered  each  session,  taken 
together,  shall  possess  such  unity  that  they 
may  be  published  by  the  Foundation  in  book 
form.  * 


VI 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  lectures  here  printed  were  given 
orally  from  briefs  at  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia in  November,  1909.  They  have  been 
written  out  in  the  summer  of  19 10.  In  writ- 
ing them  out  some  changes  of  order  and  a 
few  additions  have  been  made. 

C.  W.  E. 

AsTicou,  Maine, 

September^  igio. 


»  »     >  » >     » 


IN  INDUSTRIES  AND  TRADES 

All  through  the  nineteenth  century  a  con- 
flict was  going  on  in  all  civilized  nations 
between  two  opposite  tendencies  in  human 
society,  individualism  and  collectivism.  Till 
about  1870  individualism  had  the  advantage 
in  this  conflict;  but  near  the  middle  of  the 
century  collectivism  began  to  gain  on  indi- 
vidualism, and  during  the  last  third  of  the 
century  collectivism  won  decided  advantages 
over  the  opposing  principle.  Individualism 
values  highly  not  only  the  rights  of  the  single 
person,  but  also  the  initiative  of  the  individ- 
ual left  free  by  society.  Collectivism  values 
highly  social  rights,  objects  to  an  individual 
initiative  which  does  mischief  when  left  free, 
holds  that  the  interest  of  the)  many  should 
override  the  interest  of  the  individual,  when-^ 
ever  the  two  interests  conflict,  and  should  con- 


\ 

2  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND  TRADES 


]  trol  social  action,  and  yet  does  not  propose 
(to  extii;igmsh  the  individual^^but  only  to  re- 
[  strict  .him  for  the  common  good,  including 
'  m^'  ov7nl 

At  the  outset  it  will  be  well  to  point  out  that 
collectivism  should  not  be  confounded  with 
socialism,  j  Socialism  dwells  on  the  sharp  and 
unnatural  division  of  society  into  a  few  owners 
of  land  and  machinery  on  the  one  hand,  and 
many  wage-earners  on  the  other,  on  the  small 
share  of  the  wage-earner  in  the  product  of  his 
industry,  on  the  wrongfulness  of  private  prop- 
erty, and  on  the  waste  and  cruelty  of  competi- 
tion. Collectivism  is  not  concerned  with  any 
of  these  matters.  Socialism  advocates  the/ 
ultimate  ownership  of  all  the  means  of  pro- 
duction, including  the  land,  by  society  as  a- 
whole,  and  as  a  step  that  way  advocates 
immediate  government  ownership  of  public 
utihties.  Collectivism  has  no  general  theory 
on  that  subject,  and  in  practice  is  simply  op- 
portunist in  regard  to  it.  •  In  these  days  there 
is  a  socialism  which  has  no  destructive  or 
violent  quality,   but  is  in  its  doctrines  ex- 


COLLECTIVISM  NOT  SOCIALISM  3 

tremely  enervating  to  the  individual  man  or 
woman.  It  would  have  society  as  a  whole 
provide  against  all  the  trials  and  disasters  of 
life.  Are  wages  in  any  industry  unreasonably 
low?  It  would  have  the  government  raise 
them.  Is  any  married  pair  unable  on  account 
of  incapacity  or  poverty,  or  unwilling  on  ac- 
count of  laziness  or  indifference,  to  bring  up 
their  children  well  ?  The  government  shall 
take  charge  of  the  children,  and  feed,  clothe, 
and  educate  them.  Are  any  able-bodied  per- 
sons, male  or  female,  unemployed  ?  The  state 
shall  employ  them,  and  shall  carry  on  any 
farms,  shops,  factories,  or  mines  needed  to 
furnish  the  employment.  Are  there  any  sick, 
disabled,  or  old  people  who  cannot  support 
themselves  ?  Society  as  a  whole  shall  support 
them.  Are  any  marriages  unhappy,  childless, 
or  wearisome  ?  Let  the  state  facilitate  by 
legislation  the  loosening  of  bonds  which  have 
become  unprofitable  both  economically  and 
sentimentally,  and  do  what  it  can  to  break  up 
family  exclusiveness  based  on  either  economic 
or  sentimental  grounds.     These  are  doctrines 


4  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND  TRADES 

which,  if  carried  into  practice,  would  impair 
the  family  as  the  unit  of  social  organization, 
and  would  take  away  from  the  individual  man 
or  woman  most  of  the  motives  which  now 
prompt  to  industry,  frugahty,  foresight,  con- 
jugal fidelity,  and  loving  devotion  to  those 
members  of  the  family  who  are  either  too 
young  or  too  old  for  productive  labor.  The 
state  would  become  a  vast  charitable  institu- 
tion, exercising  a  universal  despotic  benevo- 
lence. Compulsory  labor  would  be  the  rule 
for  the  individual  citizen,  to  whatever  amount 
the  state  judged  necessary  to  enable  it  to 
meet  its  enormous  expenditures  for  the  com- 
mon good.  The  service  of  the  state  would 
be  the  universal  occupation.  Ambition  for 
personal  excellence,  or  family  improvement 
and  progress  would  be  confined  to  a  very  few 
morally  exceptional  persons.  The  fine  arts, 
being  dependent  on  individual  endowment 
and  initiative,  would  languish.  It  would  be 
no  object  to  acquire  private  property,  for  if 
the  state  were  successfully  administered  every- 
body would  be  sure  of  bare  food,  clothing,  and 


AMERICANS  INDIVIDUALISTIC  5 

shelter,  and  nobody  would  be  able  to  secure 
luxuries  or  transmit  savings  to  children. 

With  this  Utopian  scheme,  so  unattractive 
to  ordinary  freemen,  the  collectivism  w^hich  is 
to  be  discussed  in  these  lectures  has  noth- 
ing v^hatever  to  do.     The  collectivism  which 
has  developed  so  effectively  since  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  maintains  private  u 
property,   the   inheritance   of  property,   the  :;j 
family  as  the  unit  of  society,  and  the  liberty  ^, 
of  the  individual  as  a  fundamental  right;  and 
it  relies   for  the  progress  of  society  on  the 
personal  virtues  rightly  called  "homely,"  be- 
cause they  have  to  do  with  the  maintenance 
of  a  home — namely,  industry,  frugality,  pru- 
dence, domestic  affection,  independence,  emu- 
lation, and  energy. 

Individualism  has  a  strong  natural  hold  on  V 
the  American  democracy.  In  the  first  place, 
the  early  settlers  on  American  soil  were  in  the 
main  Protestants,  inheritors  of  the  deep-seated 
individualism  of  the  Protestant  Reformation. 
In  the  next  place,  the  first  American  colonies 
on  the  Atlantic  shore  of  the  great  territory  now 


IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 


called  the  United  States  brought  with  them 
from  the  Old  World  only  the  slightest  traces 
of  the  feudal  system — the  earliest  successful 
colony,  that  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth,  none 
at  all.  The  early  settlers  were  individualistic 
^  in  their  make-up  and  temperament,  as  all 
pioneers  are  apt  to  be,  and  their  occupations 
were  of  the  independent;  individualistic  sort. 
They  were  farmers,  fishermen,  tradespeople, 
and  mechanics;  and  these  are  occupations 
which  lend  themselves  to  independence  of 
character  and  to  the  acquisition  of  private 
property.  The  eighteenth  century,  through 
its  public  events  and  through  its  commonest 
private  experiences,  was  very  favorable  in 
this  country  to  the  development  of  individu- 
alistic theory  and  practice.  The  population 
was  sparse,  and  there  were  no  large  towns  or 
cities,  and  no  factories.  The  teachings  of 
Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Thomas  Paine  were 
intensely  individualistic^^efFerson's  funda- 
mental doctrine  was  the  political  and  eco- 
nomic value  of  individual  liberty-(^the  pursuit 
^^of  happiness  was  the  right  of  every  human 


GROWTH  OF  COLLECTIVISM 


being,  and  in  that  pursuit  he  had  a  right  to  be 
let  alone,  provided  he  did  not  interfere  with /"/ 
other  peoples'  pursuit  of  happiness(^^hevj^^ 
town  meeting,  manhood  suffrage,  and  repre- 
sentative government  all  emphasized  the  po- 
tenq^  of  the  individual  and  the  sanctity  of  his  j 
rights. ;  So  when  an  American  municipality 
declares  to-day  by  its  habitual  action  that  no 
resident  is  to  go  cold  or  hungry,  and  that  every 
child  is  to  receive  free  of  cost  an  elementary 
education — which  indeed  has  been  the  tra- 
ditional practice  of  the  New  England  town 
for  centuries — it  is  not  putting  into  practice 
any  theory  of  nineteenth-century  socialism. 
It  is  helping  unfortunate  or  degraded  indi- 
viduals and  educating  children  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  collectivism,  without  intending  even 
the  least  interference  with  private  property, 
family  duty,  or  the  self-respecting  indepen- 
de;ice  of  the  individual  tax-paying  citizen. 
y^  The  rise  and  growing  power  of  collectivism 
^  in  the  American  democracy  is  due  to  the  same 
influences  which  have  acted  on  the  European 
nations,  and  especially  on  the  English.  These 
influences  have  been  the  development  of  the 


^' 


8  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

factory  system,  the  creation  of  corporations 
with  limited  liability,  the  rise  of  numerous 
scientific  and  artistic  professions,  the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  natural  resources  of  new 
countries  or  regions  by  capitalists  coming 
from  older  countries  or  regions,  and  the  cre- 
ation of  unprecedented  inequalities  as  to 
comfort  and  wealth,  not  as  privileges  of 
birth,  but  as  results,  first,  of  the  general 
liberty  and  the  prevailing  social  mobility, 
and  secondly,  of  the  transmission  of  educa- 
tion and  property.  From  all  these  influences 
taken  together  there  have  appeared  in  every 
democratic  society  in  the  world,  and  especial- 
ly in  the  American  democracy,  industrial  and 
social  classes  or  layers,  and  strong  collective 
action  in  every  class. 

The  concentration  of  population  which  has 
taken  place  within  two  generations  in  the 
United  States,  east  of  the  Mississippi  and 
north  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Potomac,  has  made 
necessary  the  free  use  of  collective  forces  for 
the  protection  and  service  of  the  concentrated 
population;  and  many  individuaHstic  rights 
and  habits  have  been  impaired  or  modified  iii 


view  of  imperative  collective  needs.  The  con- 
centration of  population  has  forced  govern- 
ment to  assume  many  new  functions,  to  in- 
crease public  expenditures,  and  therefore 
taxes,  and  to  interfere  frequently  with  indi- 
vidual rights  formerly  considered  very 
precious.  In  short,  government  has  been 
centralized,  and  its  forces  have  been  more 
freely  used  and  more  widely  applied  in  pro- 
portion to  the  concentration  of  population. 
Since  governmental  administration  covers 
many  new  subjects  and  costs  much  more 
than  it  used  to,  it  must  appropriate  a  larger 
proportion  than  formerly  of  the  products  of 
the  national  industries,  do  everything  in  its 
power  to  prevent  the  waste  or  misuse  of 
natural  resources,  and  regulate  both  private 
and  corporate  activities  in  the  interest  of  the 
whole  community.  In  this  process  collect- 
ivism has  made  many  gains,  and  individu- 
alism many  losses.  ^ 
■ 

These  lectures  will  deal  with  the  struggle 
between  individualism  and  collectivism  under 


three  heads,  first,  in  industries  and  trades, 
secondly,  in  education,  and  thirdly,  in  govern- 
ment. 

Following  the  introduction  of  mechanical 
power  and  the  consequent  organization  of  the 
factory  system,  trades-unions  came  into  ex- 
istence in  England  early  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  operatives  were  for  the  most  part 
ignorant,  uneducated  people,  who  had  been 
transferred  within  a  generation  from  out- 
of-door  employments  to  indoor  work  in 
crowded,  unventilated  rooms,  where  they  en- 
gaged in  monotonous  labor  for  very  long 
hours,  but  could  only  acquire  a  Hmited 
amount  of  skill.  The  factory  taught  punctu- 
ality, order,  and  diligence;  but  it  did  not  try 
to  make  the  work  either  wholesome  or  in- 
teresting. The  system  tended  to  mass  the 
wretched  population  of  operatives  in  the  con- 
gested districts  of  large  towns,  a  process 
which  increased  their  misery.  The  trades- 
unions  exerted  a  collective  force,  each  for  its 
own  trade,  to  resist  the  intolerable  physical 
and  moral  conditions  under  which  the  great 


UNIONISM  A    COLLECTIVE  FORCE  ii 

manufacturing  industries  were  conducted. 
They  instituted  a  collective  demand  for 
higher  wages,  shorter  hours,  and  more  hu- 
mane conditions  of  daily  labor,  and  main- 
tained that  demand  with  extreme  violence  and 
much  self-sacrifice.  As  time  went  on  and  the 
unions  covered  all  the  principal  trades,  their 
successful  exertions  were  of  great  service,  not 
only  to  the  operative  class  in  large  factories, 
but  to  the  little  skilled  laboring  class  in  gen- 
eral, and  therefore  to  English  society  as  a 
whole. 

^  The  trades-unions  came  comparatively  late 
to  the  United  States,  the  individualistic  quality 
of  the  original  population  being  a  strong  ob- 
stacle to  their  progress  in  this  country.  They 
were  a  foreign  importation,  and  are  still 
manned  chiefly  by  persons  of  alien  birth,  or  by 
American-born  children  of  aliens.  The  im- 
mense development  of  the  factory  system  in 
the  United  States,  however,  necessitated  the 
creation  of  trades-unions  on  American  soil,  and 
once  started  here  they  developed  their  peculiar 
collective  action  with  ingenuity  and  energy. 


1  12  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

\ 

All  well-organized  unions  inculcate  sub- 
mission to  the  majority  rule,  obedience  to 
officers  elected  for  short  terms,  and  supreme 
loyalty  to  the  union  in  all  cases  of  conflict 
of  loyalties.  These  are  collective  doctrines, 
taught  for  the  purpose  of  securing  common 
action  on  the  part  of  large  bodies  of  men  who 
believe  themselves  to  have  a  common  interest 
as  a  class,  or  group,  or  set,  to  promote  which 
they  are  willing  to  forego  a  large  part  of  their 
liberty  as  individuals. 

It  is  obvious  that  in  order  to  secure  this 

vigorous  collective  action  in  industrial  con- 

^,..^sts  each  member  of  a  union  must  reconcile 

\y  himself  to  heavy  losses  of  individual  liberty, 

'"--■^  and  must  always  be  ready  to  make  serious 

sacrifices  for  what  he  regards  as  the  good  or 

.  ^'  interest  of  his  fellows.     Each  workman  must 

^^^     strike,  for  example,  on  vote  of  the  majority  of 

his  union  to  do  so,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  to 

cease  to  earn  wages  may  involve  heavy  loss 

and  suffering  to  himself  and  his  family.     No 

union  man  can  utilize  any  unusual  skill  or 

capacity  he  may  possess  to  secure  his  own  ad- 


UNION  RULES  IMPAIR  LIBERTY 


13 


vancement.  He  cannot  be  eager  or  zealous 
at  work,  either  in  his  employer's  interest  or  in 
his  own.  He  cannot  be  sure  of  bringing  up 
his  sons  to  his  own  trade.  He  cannot  secure 
a  rise  of  wages  except  through  the  union.  He 
finds  that  the  union  rules  make  it  very  difficult 
for  him  to  pass  from  the  journeyman  class  to 
the  employer  class;  but,  worst  of  all,  he  is' 
deprived  of  the  individualistic  motive  for  per- 
sonal improvement  from  day  to  day  and  year 
to  year.  He  sees  that  rapid  workers  and 
pace-setters  are  outlawed.  He  sees  that  his 
union  makes  apprenticeship  unnecessarily 
long  in  order  to  keep  down  the  number  of 
journeymen;  that  it  stops  the  employment  of 
old  men  who  are  not  worth  the  union  wage; 
that  it  causes  younger  men  who  are  dull  or 
slow,  and  therefore  not  worth  the  union  wage, 
to  be  employed  only  irregularly,  at  moments 
of  unusual  activity  in  their  trades;  and  that  it 
causes  women  to  be  practically  excluded  from 
many  trades  because  they  are  not  worth  the 
union  wage  for  men;  and  yet  he  submits  to 
the  majority  which  makes  and  enforces  such 


IN  INDUSTRIES  AND  TRADES 

rules.  He  not  only  modifies  or  suppresses  his 
opinions,  but  also  sacrifices  precious  rights  as 
anjjidividual  to  the  collective  interest  of  his 
l/  class.  Surely  these  losses  of  individual  liberty 
to  secure  collective  efficiency  in  combat  are 
grave  indeed^  Taken  in  connection  with  the 
operation  of  the  union  rules  limiting  the  out- 
put of  the  individual  v^orkman,  these  losses 
are  sure  to  diminish  very  much  in  a  few  gen- 
erations the  individual  initiative  and  produc- 
tiveness of  large  masses  of  the  population, 
namely,  those  that  work  under  the  factory 
system,  or  in  other  large  bodies  which  are 
capable  of  being  unionized. 

The  trades-unions  have  made  it  their  chief 
object  in  recent  years  to  secure  higher  and 
higher  wages  and  shorter  and  shorter  hours, 
and  to  this  end  they  have  sought  to  secure  a 
monopoly  each  of  its  own  kind  of  labor.  This 
effort  to  secure  monopoly  has  been  approxi- 
mately successful  in  a  few  trades,  and  partially 
successful  in  many,  and  this  labor  monopoly 
has  threatened  so  seriously  the  industries  of 
the  country,  that  another  kind  of  collective 


CORPORATIONS  COLLECTIVE  FORCES       15 

action,  which  also  interferes  greatly  with  in- 
dividual liberty,  became  indispensable.  The 
associations  of  employers  came  into  vigorous 
existence,  in  order  to  combine  all  employers 
in  a  given  line  of  business  in  energetic  resist- 
ance to  the  monopolies  of  labor  organized  by 
trades-unions.  Many  of  the  employers  were 
corporations. 

Incorporation  with  limited  liability  is  the 
greatest  business  invention  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  because  it  concentrates  in  a  few 
hands  the  managing  and  directing  powers, 
masses  capital,  and  has  extraordinary  facil- 
ities for  increasing  the  amount  of  capital  in- 
vested in  a  given  industry.  Through  their 
shares  and  bonds,  quite  new  forms  of  prop- 
erty, successful  corporations  are  great  dif- 
fusers  of  property  among  the  frugal  people  of 
the  country,  securing  to  well-established  in- 
dustries a  portion  of  the  annual  savings  of  the 
people,  and  yet  putting  these  savings  into  such 
a  form  that  their  owners  can  at  any  moment 
bring  them  back  into  their  own  hands  by 
selling  the  bonds  or  stocks  in  which  they  have 


i6  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

been  invested.  The  stocks  and  bonds  of 
well-managed  corporations  afford  excellent 
illustrations  of  collectivism  strengthening  de- 
mocracy and  resisting  socialism  by  devising 
safe  but  mobile  forms  of  property.  Many 
successful  corporations  in  finance,  transporta- 
tion, or  manufacturing  demonstrate  the  pos- 
sibility of  developing  an  effective  collectivism 
which  will  not  destroy,  though  it  may  qualify, 
individualism. 

Trusts  being  combinations  of  existing  cor- 
porations, firms,  or  powerful  persons,  are 
larger  units  of  collective  action  which  hope 
to  secure  the  economic  advantages  of  a  vast, 
unified  organization,  and  also  a  control  of 
prices.  Like  trades-unions,  they  generally 
aim  at  a  monopoly,  but  seldom  attain  to 
it.  Whenever  they  do  attain  to  it,  they  incur 
the  hatred  of  the  democracy.  Trades-unions, 
corporations,  and  trusts  alike  tend  to  suppress 
competition,  and  therefore  to  stop  industrial 
progress—jfor  competition  is  not  only  the  life 
of  trade,  bmThe  source  of  continuous  im- 
provement, since  it  supplies  an  urgent  motive 


THE  DESIRE  FOR  MONOPOLY  17 

for  improvement.  Any  industry  from  which 
competition  was  successfully  excluded  would 
inevitably  become  a  stagnant  or  unprogres- 
sive  industry;  and  any  population  which  suc- 
ceeded in  securing  itself  from  competition — 
as,  for  example,  by  an  effective  tariff  wall — 
would  become  within  a  few  generations 
a  retrograde  population.  Fortunately,  the 
means  of  entirely  excluding  competition  have 
not  yet  been  discovered,  though  diligently 
sought.  The  collective  action  of  corpora- 
tions and  trusts  can  be  made  very  effecfive 
^tmhctrr-approaching  the  destruction  of  com-        A 

petition;   but  the  highest  efficiency  of  trades- 

unions  toward  the  accomplishment  of  their  , 
class  objects  cannot  be  secured  unless  they;^ 
respectively  control  nearly  all  the  labor  in  , 
their  several  trades.     Hence,  the  urgency  of 
the  unions  for  the  "closed  shop,"  or  at  least 
for  the  shop  in  which  union  men  have  a  strong 
preference.     The  agents  of  the  unions  in  col- 
lective bargaining  have  a  great  advantage  if 
they  can  say  to  the  employers,  "You  shall 
have  no  workmen  except  on  the  following 


i8  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

terms."  The  statement  "You  shall  have  no 
union  workmen  except  on  the  following  terms" 
is  comparatively  ineffective,  if  any  consider- 
able number  of  non-union  men  are  at  hand 
ready  to  work  on  other  terms. 

The  keen  interest  of  both  employers  and 
employed  in  the  establishment  of  a  monopoly 
makes  it  very  desirable  for  both  legislatures 
and  courts  to  discriminate  between  good  and 
bad  competition,  and  to  study  the  means  of 
maintaining  in  the  interest  of  the  consumer 
all  reasonable  competition.  Two  kinds  of 
competition  are  unquestionably  bad — first, 
any  competition  which  loses  sight  of,  or  dis- 
regards, profit  in  the  industry  affected,  and 
secondly,  any  competition  which  so  reduces 
wages  that  a  decent  livelihood  cannot  be 
earned  by  the  working  people.  It  is  never 
for  the  interest  of  the  community  as  a  whole 
that  any  of  its  industries  should  be  carried  on 
at  a  loss,  even  temporarily,  or  that  any  part 
of  the  able-bodied  population  should  be  un- 
able to  earn  wages  enough  to  secure  for  them- 
selves and  their  families  health,  strength,  and 


COMPETITION  INDISPENSABLE  19 

capacity  for  enjoyment,  so  far  as  money  can 
buy  these  elements  of  well-being.  If  these 
two  kinds  of  competition  are  excluded  or  pre- 
vented, the  community  as  a  whole  has  a  right 
to  expect  great  gains  from  animated  competi- 
tion in  every  branch  of  industry,  every  play 
or  sport,^nd  every  educational  or  social  ac- 
tivity.^^oth  individual  and  collective  prog- 
ress are  won  in  most  instances  through  com- 
petition, and  a  large  part  of  the  interest  of 
life  comes  to  all  human  beings,  and  indeed  to 
many  animals,  through  competitive  action  in 
both  work  and  play.  The  desirable  com- 
petition, however,  is  competition  between  the 
strong  and  the  strong,  which  will  probably 
result  in  the  improvement  of  all  parties,  not 
competition  between  the  strong  and  the  weak, 
which  may  result  in  the  extinction  of  the 
weaker.  The  effort  to  abolish  competition 
is  a  good  illustration  of  the  common  ten- 
dency in  modern  reformers  to  disregard,  in 
their  recommendations  for  social  improve- 
ment, both  human  nature  and  human  ex- 
perience. 


20  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

The  employers'  associations  which  band 
together  employers  in  the  same  or  kindred 
industries  to  resist  the  collective  attacks  of 
trades-unions  are  now  strong,  and  are  active 
in  two  useful  directions,  first,  to  resist  the 
creation  of  monopolies  of  labor  by  trades- 
unions  and  the  unreasonable  demands  of 
unions,  and  secondly,  to  improve  the  methods 
of  their  own  members  as  regards  humanity, 
considerateness,  and  justice  toward  em- 
ployees. These  associations  are  successfully 
resisting  at  many  points  the  most  objection- 
able monopohstic  methods  of  the  trades- 
unions,  namely,  the  closed  shop,  the  limi- 
tation of  the  number  of  apprentices,  the 
limitation  of  output,  the  union  label,  and  the 
boycott.  They,  however,  necessarily  cause 
great  losses  of  Hberty  to  the  individual  em- 
ployer. Thus,  when  a  strike  has  occurred 
in  the  works  of  a  member  of  the  association 
he  cannot  settle  it  himself,  but  must  observe 
the  standing  rules  of  the  association  in  regard 
to  the  settlement  of  strikes.  He  must  also 
pay  for  resisting  strikes  and  boycotts  quite 


EMPLOYERS'   LIBERTIES  IMPAIRED  21 

outside  his  own  works  and,  indeed,  in  the 
works  or  factories  of  his  competitors.  He 
must  obey  in  the  conduct  of  his  own  business 
rules  laid  down  by  the  association  of  which 
he  is  a  member.  He  becomes  responsible 
morally  and  pecuniarily  for  words  and  acts 
of  his  association's  officers  and  organs. 
These  are  serious  losses  of  employers'  liber- 
ties, once  held  to  be  precious.  He  can  no 
longer  carry  on  his  own  business  in  his  own 
way;  but  must  take  into  account  the  col- 
lective interest  of  the  class  to  which  he  be- 
longs and  the  dangers  which  threaten  the 
employing  class  as  a  whole. 
^  Collectivism,  as  concentrated  in  a  combina- 
tion of  trades-unions  and  employers'  associa- 
tions working  together  in  harmony,  has  won 
its  greatest  triumphs  by  successfully  dictating 
to  the  great  majority  of  the  people,  the  con- 
sumers, as  regards  both  wholesale  and  retail 
priceg^  This  power  is  exercised  through  the 
trade  agreement  made  between  a  trade-union 
or  several  trades-unions  and  a  corporation  or 
trust,  and  also  in  the  case  of  transportation 


22  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND  TRADES 

services  through  the  schedule  of  hours,  wages, 
and  conditions  adopted  by  the  common  action 
of  a  corporation  and  the  unions  which  supply 
the  workmen  employed  by  the  corporation. 
Such  agreements  may  sometimes  be  better 
than  actual  fighting  between  a  corporation 
and  its  workmen,  or  than  the  complete  stop- 
page of  the  industry;  but  they  are  full  of 
danger  to  the  consumer  and  to  discipline 
within  the  industry  concerned.  In  a  monop- 
olistic industry,  which  has  freed  itself  from 
competition  by  tariff  legislation,  the  annihila- 
tion of  independent  producers,  or  the  control 
of  the  distributing  agencies,  there  is  no  effec- 
tive limit  to  prices  except  the  probable  ab- 
stinence of  the  consumer. 

Such  is  the  struggle  between  collectivism 
and  individualism  in  industries  at  the  present 
day.  If  we  look  back  to  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  before  trades-unionsim 
was  rife  in  this  country,  and  before  corpora- 
tions with  limited  liability  existed,  or  trusts 
and  associations  of  employers  had  been 
thought  of,  we  shall  agree  that  collectivism 


THE  GAINS  OF  COLLECTIVISM  23 

has  gained  enormously  on  individualism. 
Resistance  to  a  common  peril  on  the  part  of 
a  distinct  race,  or  a  distinct  class,  or  of  the 
adherents  of  a  certain  religion,  promotes  and 
intensifies  collective  action.  Thus,  the  white 
race  in  the  South  acted  together  as  one  man 
in  guarding  against  the  perils  to  which  the 
enslaving  of  the  entire  African  race  within 
their  borders  exposed  them,  or  was  imagined 
to  expose  them.  Not  long  ago  in  the  North- 
ern States  large  bodies  of  Protestants  could 
be  periodically  enlisted  for  collective  action 
against  Catholics.  '  Men  of  the  same  class  or 
the  same  occupations  are  not  infrequently 
prompted  to  unite  in  common  resistance  to 
unsympathetic  criticism;  and  the  liberty  of 
the  press  makes  the  occasions  for  that  sort  of 
collective  action  more  frQOuent  than  they  were 
before  the  press  was  freeTy  Every  profession, 
learned  or  scientific,  forms  a  voluntary  asso- 
ciation for  the  promotion  of  the  common  in- 
terests of  the  profession,  and  particularly  for 
raising  the  standards  of  professional  educa- 
tion, and  maintaining  in  the  practice  of  the 


24  '  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 


profession  sound  principles  of  ethics  and 
honor.  \  The  habit  of  forming  associations  of 
Hke-minded  persons  to  promote  reforms  or 
good  measures  has  grown  upon  the  American 
people  very  much  during  the  past  thirty 
years.  Such  associations  have  multiplied 
rapidly,  and  each  one  is  a  focus  of  collective 
action.  Many  philanthropic  causes  and  sev- 
eral aesthetic  causes  have  each  its  association. 
Some  of  these  voluntary  associations  deal  with 
the  conditions  of  labor  in  the  great  industries 
of  the  country,  as,  for  instance,  the  associa- 
tions for  promoting  the  public  health,  for  pre- 
venting the  employment  of  women  and  chil- 
dren in  factories,  for  providing  wholesome 
tenement  houses  and  numerous  playgrounds 
in  crowded  cities,  and  for  diminishing  the 
Ravages  of  tuberculosis.  These  associations 
support  the  trades-unions  in  their  efforts  to 
improve  the  conditions  under  which  the  labor 
of  the  country  is  done  and  the  families  of 
laboring  men  are  brought  up.  To  promote 
"welfare  work"  is  only  an  incidental  object 
in  trades-unions,  their  main  object  being  to 


INDUSTRIAL  BETTERMENT  2$ 

contend  for  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours; 
but  in  many  voluntary  associations  welfare 
work  is  the  principal  object.  They  exist  only 
to  promote  the  general  welfare  by  preventing 
diseases  and  premature  death,  resisting  vices, 
and  providing  the  means  of  wholesome  living 
and  rational  enjoyment.  Among  these  move- 
ments toward  social  improvement  none  is 
more  important  than  that  which  plans  and 
provides  better  housing  for  the  laboring 
classes.  The  industrial  strife  which  inflicts 
such  woes  and  losses  on  the  entire  community 
is  worst  among  those  laborers  who  have  the 
least  skill,  earn  the  least  money,  and  therefore 
live  in  the  worst  conditions  with  the  least  at- 
tractive surroundings.  When  to  these  unfort- 
unate conditions  is  added  the  nomad  habit, 
such  as  prevails  among  the  miners  of  Col- 
orado, Utah,  Wyoming,  Montana,  and  Idaho, 
the  industrial  warfare  is  sure  to  be  at  its 
worst.  Good  housing  is  an  effective  weapon 
against  all  these  evil  influences.  It  makes  the 
conditions  of  life  for  the  poorest  people  com- 
fortable and  wholesome,  and  it  tends  strongly 


26  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

to  induce  workmen  to  live  steadily  in  one 
place  and  not  to  rove.  Many  employers,  both 
persons  and  corporations,  have  tried  to  use 
this  means  of  securing  a  permanent,  experi- 
enced, contented  body  of  employees;  but  too 
frequently  such  experiments  have  failed,  be- 
cause unwisely  conducted.  It  is  not  well  for 
an  industrial  corporation  to  own  the  houses  in 
which  their  workmen  live,  because  suspicions 
and  contentions  are  sure  to  arise  about  rents 
and  ejectments.  To  put  the  rents  of  the  tene- 
ments owned  by  the  manufacturing  corpora- 
tion below  a  remunerative  rate  will  not  help 
the  situation.  The  tenants  thus  favored  will 
inevitably  believe  that  what  the  corporation 
sacrifices  in  rents  it  recovers  in  lower  wages. 
A  separate  corporation,  or  co-operative  soci- 
ety, should  own  the  houses.  This  is  a  case 
in  which  individualism  will  not  succeed  in 
maintaining  the  restrictions  necessary  to  the 
safe  conduct  of  the  community.  An  indi- 
vidual owner  in  fee  simple  may  at  any  moment 
sell  his  holding  for  some  vicious  occupation. 
Only  collective  holding  through  a  corporation 


COLLECTIVISM  IN  HOUSING  27 

or  co-operative  society  can  provide  the  needed 
securities. 

The  English  societies  for  copartnership  in 
housing,  such  as  the  Eahng  (London)  Tenants 
Limited  and  the  Garden  City  Tenants  Lim- 
ited, afford  excellent  illustrations  of  collective 
action  to  avoid  the  evils  of  the  individual 
ov^nership  of  houses  and  of  speculative  build- 
ing by  capitalists  vs^ho  have  no  public  spirit. 
They  harmonize  the  interest  of  tenant  and  in- 
vestor by  an  equitable  use  of  the  profit  arising 
from  the  increase  of  values  and  the  careful  use 
of  the  property  under  restrictions  which  are 
advantageous  to  all  the  members.  In  large 
cities  the  housing  problem  will  not  be  well 
solved  by  individual  proprietors  who  are 
merely  looking  for  the  best  immediate  return 
on  their  capital.  House  property  and  land 
are  kinds  of  property  which  can  be  used  in  a 
way  to  produce  serious  injury  to  individuals 
and  families,  and  through  them  to  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole.  The  capitalist  or  specu- 
lator who  proposes  to  build  for  quick  sale  may 
do  the  community  an  injury,  the  effects  of 


IN  INDUSTRIES  AND  TRADES 


which  will  run  on  through  several  generations 
of  men.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ownership 
of  houses  by  individual  workmen  involves  in 
these  days  many  risks  for  the  owner.  The  in- 
dividual cannot  buy  land  and  build  a  single 
house  at  the  price  which  would  be  paid  for  a 
hundred  lots  and  a  hundred  houses.  Hexan- 
not  borrow  money  on  mortgage  at  as  favor- 
able a  rate  as  a  sound  building  society  can. 
Moreover,  he  cannot  be  sure,  even  though  he 
be  an  excellent  workman,  of  procuring  per- 
manent employment  in  one  and  the  same 
place;  and  in  case  he  is  obliged  to  change  his 
place  of  residence  he  may  be  at  a  disadvantage 
in  disposing  of  his  house  and  land.  In  short, 
the  individualistic  method  is  not  so  safe  as  a 
collective  method  through  an  organized  ten- 
ants' society.  The  English  tenants'  societies 
acquire  land  and  erect  substantial,  whole- 
some, and  convenient  houses,  which  they  let 
to  their  members  at  rents  sufficient  to  pay  a 
moderate  interest  on  the  capital  invested,  and 
provide  for  expenses,  repairs,  and  deprecia- 
tion, and  they  then  divide  any  surplus  profits 


CO-OPERATION  IN  HOUSING  29 

among  the  tenant  members,  in  proportion  to 
the  rents  paid  by  them.  Each  tenant  mem- 
ber's share  of  profits  is  paid,  not  in  cash,  but  in 
shares  of  the  company.  The  interest  of  the 
tenant  member  in  the  surplus  profits  prompts 
him  to  take  care  of  the  property,  to  keep  down 
repairs,  to  find  tenants  for  vacant  houses,  and 
to  pay  his  rent  punctually.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  the  investing  shareholder  the  invest- 
ment is  a  secure  one,  although  the  rate  of  in- 
terest is  moderate.  The  tenants  obtain  most 
of  the  economic  advantages  of  owning  their 
own  houses,  but  not  all  of  the  sentimental  ad- 
vantages. The  first  of  these  associations  was 
started  in  1888,  but  mostof  them  were  started 
between  1901  and  1906.  The  words  **  co- 
partnership" and  "co-operation"  are  prop- 
erly applied  to  them,  for  they  afford  an  ad- 
mirable example  of  collective  action  which 
does  not  diminish  individual  initiative  and 
Hberty,  or  hinder  development  of  the  individu- 
alistic virtues.  The  Ealing  Tenants  Limited 
was  started  in  1901  on  an  area  of  forty-eight 
acres.     At  the  start  they  set  apart  nearly  one- 


30  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

tenth  of  this  area  for  open  grounds  in  addition 
to  the  areas  occupied  by  streets.  The  houses 
are  all  built  of  brick  with  slate  roofs,  and  all 
have  running  water  and  gas.  There  are  no 
tenement  or  apartment  houses,  every  tenant 
occupying  a  separate  house.  By  June,  1907, 
the  society  had  a  hundred  and  eighty-two 
members,  a  hundred  and  twenty  houses,  and 
property  valued  at  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  It  bears  strong  testimony  to  the 
worth  of  collectivism  which  does  not  suppress 
individualism. 

The  necessity  of  controlling  capitalism, 
working  on  the  housing  problem  with  only  the 
motive  of  individual  profit,  is  shown  by  the 
numerous  tenement-house,  factory,  and  build- 
ing laws,  which  are  now  directed  toward  the 
protection  of  urban  populations  against  un- 
wholesome conditions,  such  as  the  exclusion  of 
light  and  air,  and  against  personal  risk  from 
fire,  contagion,  and  accident.  The  building 
laws  of  most  cities  now  control  in  many  re- 
spects the  size,  height,  plan,  and  cost  of  build- 
ings, and  limit  strictly  the  use  which  the  owner 


COLLECTIVISM  IN  BUILDING  LAWS        31 

of  a  given  lot  can  make  of  it.  They  control 
not  only  the  ignorant  or  greedy  owners,  but 
those  who  are  disposed  to  regard  the  public 
interests  while  they  seek  their  own.  Such 
protective  laws  illustrate  a  form  of  collective 
action  which  is  constantly  changing,  because 
new  abuses  come  to  light,  restrictions  once 
needed  are  needed  no  longer,  and  the  safe 
limits  of  structural  stability  become  better  and 
better  known.  This  form  of  collective  action 
has  been  forced  on  cities  by  the  deplorable  re- 
sults of  unregulated  competition  in  building, 
having  only  the  motive  of  private  profit. 

The  most  important  collective  action  to- 
day is  the  formation  of  public  opinion  on  hu- 
manitarian, commercial,  industrial,  and  gov- 
ernmental subjects.  This  process  goes  on 
through  numerous  agencies  of  divers  nature, 
but  chiefly  through  the  daily  newspapers  and 
the  periodicals,  public  meetings,  and  the 
meetings  of  the  many  associations  devoted 
to  the  promotion  of  special  public  objects. 
Pamphlets  and  books  contribute  to  the  dis- 
cussion,   but   have   a   much    less    important 


32  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

place  than  they  occupied  a  hundred  or  two 
hundred  years  ago.  In  the  long  run,  in  free 
countries  it  is  this  public  opinion  which  re- 
forms abuses,  protects  rights,  and  determines 
the  direction  and  rate  of  progress.  In  order 
to  bring  public  opinion  to  bear  in  an  intelligent 
and  righteous  way  on  any  abuse  or  wrong- 
doing, the  public  must  have  full  knowledge  of 
the  facts  in  the  case.  Hence  publicity,  com- 
plete and  universal,  is  desirable  in  all  the  in- 
dustrial, financial,  and  commercial  work  of 
the  community.  Every  process  or  operation 
which  has  to  be  done  in  secret  should  be  an 
object  of  suspicion  on  the  part  of  the  public. 
Righteous  dealings  have  no  need  of  secrecy. 
Only  the  intimate  and  tender  relations  of  love 
and  friendship  have  a  right  to  privacy.  Ev- 
erything else  in  the  world  is  better  done  if 
done  in  the  open.  All  the  evil  doings  in  the 
world  seek  darkness  and  secrecy.  In  Ameri- 
can legislative  bodies  to-day  the  things  which 
are  done  wrong — like  the  tariff,  the  wasteful 
and  pauperizing  pension  acts,  and  the  extrav- 
agant  log-rolled    appropriations    for    public 


PUBLICITY  A   COLLECTIVE  FORCE  2>Z 

works — are  all  arranged  secretly  in  commit- 
tees. The  abuses  in  mines,  factories,  rail- 
roads, banks,  insurance  companies,  and  trust 
companies,  go  on  for  years  in  secret,  until  sud- 
denly destructive  outbreaks  occur  through 
which  the  pubHc  gets,  too  late,  knowledge  of 
the  long-concealed  wrong-doing.  This  is  es- 
pecially true  of  the  industrial  warfare.  Hence 
the  extraordinary  merit  of  the  Canadian  In- 
dustrial Disputes  Investigation  Act,  which 
provides  complete  publicity  in  industrial  dis- 
putes through  an  investigation  by  an  impartial 
tribunal,  before  a  strike  or  a  lock-out  can  be 
legal.  Through  publicity  has  come,  and  will 
come,  the  remedies  for  chronic  evils  and  in- 
trenched abuses;  but  only  collectivism,  ener- 
getically and  persistently  applied,  can  secure 
this  essential  publicity.  For  such  promotion 
of  the  public  welfare  generation  after  genera- 
tion, collectivism  must  be  the  main  reliance. 
In  this  field  individualism  is  impotent,  except 
as  it  provides  leaders  for  the  collective  host. 

A  peculiar  form  of  collective  action  in  in- 
dustries has  been  lately  developed  in  most 


34  I^  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

civilized  countries  under  the  vague  name  of 
"labor  legislation."  England,  the  United 
States,  and  Germany,  the  chief  manufactur- 
ing nations,  have  enacted  more  labor  laws 
than  any  other  nations.  The  English  Factory 
Acts  having  early  estabhshed  the  principle 
that  the  state  should  regulate  the  employment 
of  women  and  children  in  factories.  Parlia- 
ment has  passed  later  a  long  series  of  labor 
measures,  three  of  which,  recently  enacted, 
have  been  very  significant — first,  the  Work- 
men's Compensation  Act,  secondly,  the  de- 
cision which  relieved  labor  unions  from  pecu- 
niary liability  for  injuries  inflicted  by  strikes, 
and  thirdly,  the  Old-Age  Pension  Act.  The 
States  of  the  American  Union  have  not  yet 
adopted  the  principle  of  compensation  to 
employees  for  injuries  received  in  the  course 
of  their  employment;  but  the  United  States 
government,  which  is  one  of  the  greatest  em- 
ployers of  labor  in  the  country,  adopted  by 
the  Act  of  May  30,  1908,  the  principle  of  com- 
pensation to  its  own  employees  killed  or  in- 
jured  in   the   course   of  their  employment. 


LABOR  LEGISLATION  35 

Since  the  government  could  not  be  forced  by 
law  to  make  such  compensation,  this  Act, 
declaring  the  principle  of  compensation  to  be 
just,  was  all  the  more  influential.  In  Eng- 
land, compensation  for  workmen  was  limited 
at  first  to  those  employments  in  which  power- 
driven  machinery  is  used,  and  minute  sub- 
divisions of  labor  prevail.  In  such  employ- 
ments there  has  been  a  great  increase  of  hazard 
for  the  workmen  within  a  hundred  years,  and 
no  workman  can  protect  himself  against  the 
negligence  of  fellow- workmen.  The  provi- 
sions of  the  act  were  subsequently  extended 
to  agricultural  and  similar  employments.  In 
general,  the  employer  is  now  expected  to  in- 
sure the  safety  of  his  employees,  just  as  he 
insures  his  plant  against  loss  by  fire.  Insur- 
ance companies  assume  the  employer's  lia- 
bility. The  cost  of  the  insurance  adds,  of 
course,  to  the  cost  of  the  manufacturer's 
product;  but  he  expects  to  shift  this  burden 
onto  the  consumer.  The  legislation  results 
in  distributing  over  the  whole  community 
losses  which  arise  from  injuries  to  individual 


^6  IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

workmen.  Such  losses  are  no  longer  borne 
by  the  killed  or  injured  workman  or  his 
family;  neither  are  they  borne  by  the  em- 
ployer of  the  injured  workman,  but  by  the 
community  as  a  whole;  and  this  distribution 
takes  place  in  all  cases  without  regard  to  the 
question  whether  the  injuries  were  due  to  the 
negligence  of  the  person  injured. 

The  compensation  legislation,  like  most 
labor  legislation,  is  a  striking  illustration  of 
the  domination  of  collectivism.  Many  other 
forms  of  labor  legislation  give  the  same  testi- 
mony, as,  for  instance,  in  the  regulation  of  the 
length  of  the  day's  work,  of  the  hours  of  clos- 
ing, of  the  sanitary  condition  of  factories, 
mines,  and  shops,  and  of  the  intervals  at 
which  the  workmen  shall  be  paid  by  their 
employers.  In  England  there  has  been  much 
social-betterment  action  by  municipal  and 
county  councils,  which  has  put  upon  the 
community  as  a  whole  the  cost  of  providing 
at  low  rents  wholesome  houses  for  large  num- 
bers of  working  people,  and  of  furnishing 
meals  to  school  children  and  to  persons  out  of 


SOCIAL  BETTERMENT  BY  LAW  37 

employment.  Such  action  implies  the  free 
use  of  the  public  resources  in  aid  of  the  un- 
fortunate, incapable,  shiftless,  or  vicious  mem- 
bers of  society.  It  relieves  such  persons  not 
only  from  suffering,  but  also  from  responsi- 
bility. To  relieve  human  beings  from  present 
suffering  is  a  trustworthy  humanitarian  in- 
stinct. To  relieve  incapable  or  vicious  human 
beings  from  responsibility  may  be  the  easiest 
way  to  deal  at  the  moment  with  a  difficult  sit- 
uation; but  if  one  looks  to  the  future,  that 
course  will  in  all  probability  prove  to  be  inju- 
rious to  the  individuals  most  nearly  concerned, 
and  to  society  at  large. 

Some  labor  legislation  has  the  justification 
that  it  increases  the  efficiency  of  the  laborers; 
but  most  of  it  must  be  justified  on  the  ground 
that  it  promotes  the  public  health,  prevents 
the  deterioration  of  the  population  through 
indoor  or  underground  work,  and  brings  a 
serene,  comfortable,  and  happy  life  within  the 
reach  of  hard-working  millions. 

The  labor  unions  in  general  and  the  large 
federations  of  unions  have  promoted  labor 


(  38  J         IN  INDUSTRIES  AND   TRADES 

legislation  in  great  variety,  good,  bad,  and 
indifferent,  and  have  often  urged  legislation 
which  was  for  the  benefit  of  a  class  rather  than 
of  society  as  a  whole;  but  thus  far  the  labor 
legislation  actually  enacted  in  this  country 
has  usually  been  for  the  interest  of  industrial 
society.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
the  immense  changes  in  industrial  conditions 
which  the  nineteenth  century  witnessed  should 
have  required  the  modification  of  rules  long 
established  in  the  civil  law  and  the  English 
common  law,  and  the  recognition  of  some  new 
principles  in  legislation. 

In  the  United  States  all  these  collective 
forces  are  made  to  seem  natural  and  promis- 
ing, because  the  people  are  accustomed  through 
their  political  institutions  to  submit  to  the  will 
^  of  a  majority,  and  to  take  great  account  of 
what  is  called  "public  opinion" — that  is,  the 
opinion  of  large  numbers  of  men  and  women 
moved  by  common  feelings,  and  believing  that 
they  have  received  in  common  trustworthy 
information.  Collectivism  is,  therefore,  sure 
to  thrive  in  this  country.    Will  an  adequate 


RESISTANCES  TO  COLLECTIVISM  39 

individualism  survive  ?  _Jn  a  democracy,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  general  tendency  of 
democracy  is  toward  the  liberty  of..the-.indi=- 
vrduafas  TveTTTsThe  hberty,-Qf  the  maoo;  gi 
majority  may  at  an^  time  act  tyrannically 
toward  a  minority  or  an  indiy[dual.  For  this 
reason  much  interest  attaches  to  certain  in- 
dustrial tendencies,  plainly  visible  within  the 
past  twenty  years,  which  resist  the  onward 
march  of  collectivism,  and  are  likely  to  afford 
much  protection  to  a  sound  individualism  in 
industries.  The  wide  distribution  of  mechan- 
ical power  by  electricity  and  the  gasolene 
engine  promotes  the  establishment  of  small 
factories  and  a  wholesome  carrying  on  of 
household  industries.  Any  one  can  now  com- 
mand the  power  needed  to  drive  a  few  sew- 
ing-machines, or  a  pump,  or  a  dory,  or  a  sep- 
arator and  a  churn.  Cheap  power  is  at  the 
disposal,  on  sea  or  land,  of  a  single  man  or 
woman,  of  a  family,  or  of  a  small  group  of 
persons  who  co-operate.  Through  this  distri- 
bution of  mechanical  power  the  individual 
is  made  more  independent  in  numerous  trades 


D 


40  IN   INDUSTRIES   AND    TRADES 

than  he  was  thirty  years  ago,  and  the  small 
producer  is  enabled  again  to  compete  with 
the  corporation  or  the  large-scale  producer. 
The  very  wide  distribution  of  cheap  fuel, 
cheap  light,  and  cheap  means  of  transporta- 
tion has  also  increased  the  independence  of  the 
individual  producer.  The  telephone  has  ex- 
erted a  similar  influence  in  favor  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  small  manufacturer,  and  is 
making  it  possible  to  carry  many  manufactur- 
ing industries  out  of  crowded  cities  and  towns 
into  the  open  country,  thereby  promoting  the 
public  health  and  a  sound  family  life  for  the 
workman.  The  telephone  is  also  helping  the 
individual  producer,  or  a  local  group  of  produc- 
ers, to  market  his  product  advantageously. 
Every  co-operative  store,  dairy,  or  small  work- 
shop is  a  bulwark  of  individuaHsm  against  an 
exaggerated  collectivism.  The  factory  system 
tends  to  the  production  of  large  quantities  of 
goods  which  are  alike,  and  must  commend 
themselves  in  the  markets  to  thousands  of  si- 
multaneous purchasers.  Big  corporations  or 
trusts  make  the  goods,  hundreds  of  persons 


INDIVIDUALISTIC  REACTIONS  41 

are  employed  in  distributing  them  during  their 
season,  and  thousands  or  even  millions  buy 
them.  The  whole  process  is  in  high  degree 
gregarious. \j3n  the  other  hand,  the  farmer,  or 
the  craftsman  who  makes  the  whole  of  a  single 
article  and  never  makes  it  twice  alike,  is  the 
individualist  in  industry.  Indeed,  the  modern 
farmer  who  owns  his  house  and  his  acres, 
raises  a  variety  of  crops,  including  most  of  the 
food  of  his  family,  uses  all  the  agricultural 
machinery  of  to-day,  and  sells  his  own  product 
by  telephone  or  telegraph,  is  the  typical  indi- 
viduaHst  of  these  times,  surpassing  in  this 
respect  even  the  independent  artisan  or  crafts- 
man. -,  Employers  in  the  larger  industries  used 
to  be  highly  individualistic,  particularly  in 
England  during  the  laissezfaire  period,  when 
large  works  were  owned  and  managed  by  a 
family  or  a  small  group  of  partners;  but  m 
recent  times  the  individualistic  quality  of  the 
great  employer  has  been  seriously  impaired — 
first,  because  he  Is  now  apt joJ>a  not  a  cole*" 
proprietor,  but  the  office^  or  agentjof  an  asso 
elation,  corporation,  or  trust;    secondly,  be 


42  IN   INDUSTRIES   AND   TRADES 

cause  he  often  belongs  to  an  association  of 
employers,  and  must  obey  their  rules;  and 
thirdly,  because  the  great  employer  now  recog- 
nizes that  he  has  duties  to  society  at  large, 
which  deprive  him  of  some-qf  his  former  rights, 
and  closely  limit  others.  ^Jle  can  no  longer 
"do  what  he  will  with  his  own";  but  must 
take  careful  account  of  the  effect  of  his  acts 
on  the  people  he  employs,  and  on  the  com- 
munity of  which  he  is  a  memberr??rhe  cap- 
tain of  industry  is  by  no  means  so  authori- 
tative as  he  was  twenty,  or  even  ten  years  ago; 
hence  better  chances  for  enterprising  and 
capable  individuals.  The  forces  which  have 
been  resisting  collectivism  during  the  past 
thirty  years  have  not  yet  gathered  strength 
enough  to  arrest  its  progress,  but  they  have 
checked  it,  and  have  shown  the  way  toward 
a  new  development  of  individualism. 


II 

IN  EDUCATION 

We  are  next  to  consider  individualism  and 
collectivism  in  education,  a  subject  on  which 
these  two  tendencies  are  often  in  strenuous 
opposition,  but  often  also  in  active  co-opera- 
tion. 

,In  the  first  place,  education  addresses  the 
single,  individual  child,  and  attempts  to  call 
forth  its  powers  of  observation,  to  train  its 
memory,  to  give  it  the  means  of  recording  for 
future  reference  what  it  sees  and  hears,  and 
to  stimulate  it  to  discriminate  and  to  reason. 
The  whole  process  takes  effect  on  an  indi- 
vidual child,  and  the  fruitage  is  in  the  highest 
degree  personal  and  individual.  Not  only  is 
systematic  education  addressed  to  an  indi- 
vidual child,  but  the  child  must  voluntarily 
accept  and  enjoy  it.  The  best  education  calls 
forth  the  child's  own  power  of  will.     It  is 

43 


44  IN^  EDUCATION 

motived  from  within,  and  cannot  be  forced 
upon  the  child  by  parents,  teachers,  or  society 
at  large;  since  only  in  freedom  can  the  de- 
sired self-control  be  developed  and  the  finest 
intellectual  powers  be  exercised.  When  Knox, 
Milton,  Locke,  or  Montaigne  describes  the 
best  possible  education,  he  conceives  it  as  ad- 
dressed or  applied  to  a  single  highly  privileged 
youth.  Indeed,  Montaigne's  ideal  is  one  ad- 
mirable tutor  devoted  all  the  time  to  one 
precious  youth;  and  Rousseau's  is  much  the 
same.  When  Thomas  Jefferson  wished  to 
found  a  university,  he  made  freedom  of  choice 
for  the  student  among  the  different  depart- 
ments of  knowledge  the  principal  feature  in 
his  scheme.  When  Ezra  Cornell  was  plan- 
ning to  found  a  university,  he  expressed  the 
desire  to  found  an  institution  where  any  one 
might  study  anything,  according  to  his  choice 
and  capacity.  The  best  thing  done  by  the 
American  colleges  during  the  past  fifty  years 
has  been  the  widening  of  their  instruction  so 
as  to  meet  the  various  individual  needs  of  a 
continually  increasing  number  of  students, 


EDUCATION  INDIVIDUALISTIC  45 

who  distribute  themselves  among  an  increas- 
ing number  of  subjects.  Secondly,  the  in- 
dividual's happiness  in  after  Hfe  depends 
largely  on  his  finding  the  career  which  fits  his 
capacity,  the  career  in  which  he  can  soonest 
and  easiest  achieve  success,  and  ultimately  his 
largest  success.  His  education,  therefore, 
should  bring  out  and  develop  any  natural  ad- 
vantage, slight  or  large,  he  may  possess  for  a 
particular  career.  '  Has  he  by  nature  a  pecul- 
iarly sensitive  touch,  or  an  eye  quicker  than 
common,  or  unusually  steady  nerves  which 
resist  excitement,  and  therefore  fatigue,  or  a 
power  to  sleep  promptly  and  under  unaccus- 
tomed conditions,  or  a  discriminating  judg- 
ment, or  a  rare  taste  in  art  or  letters,  or  the 
power  to  draw  sound,  justly  limited  inferences 
from  observed  facts,  his  education  should  be 
carefully  directed  to  develop  this  personal  ad- 
vantage, and  his  life-career  should  be  chosen 
with  reference  to  the  possession  of  this  recog- 
nized advantage.  It  is  for  the  benefit  of  the 
individual  to  bring  into  play  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment  the  motive  of  the  life-career. 


46  IN  EDUCATION 

because  that  is  a  strong  interior  motive  and  a 
lasting  one. 

In  any  free  country  the  career  a  man 
chooses  depends,  or  ought  to  depend,  on  his 
natural  gifts,  his  own  choice,  and  the  length 
and  quality  of  his  education.  The  children 
of  freemen  are  not  born  to  careers;  they  are 
not  born  to  be  ploughmen,  carpenters,  clerks, 
salesmen,  lawyers,  or  public  servants.  The 
career  is,  or  ought  to  be,  an  individual  choice, 
guided,  to  be  sure,  by  the  judgment  of  parents 
or  by  the  child's  range  of  observation,  but 
still  an  individual  choice.  The  choice  of  a 
career  and  of  education  wisely  directed  to- 
ward a  career  must  always  be  absolutely 
individualistic. 

In  a  democracy  all  the  human  "sports," 
that  is,  all  the  children  who  have  unusual  ad- 
vantageous capacities  or  qualities,  ought  to  be 
discovered  and  developed  through  education, 
and  then  directed  to  the  most  advantageous 
career.  This  is  an  intensely  individualistic 
process,  as  much  so  in  human  beings  as  in 
plants  and  animals.     The  breeders  of  advan- 


EDUCATION  A   COLLECTIVE  INTEREST    47 

tageous  varieties  of  plants  or  animals  start 
from  "sports,"  that  is,  from  remarkable  in- 
dividuals which  present  new  varieties  of  color, 
or  new  advantageous  diversities  in  form  or 
structure.  In  this  matter  the  collective  in- 
terest of  society  at  large  coincides  with  the 
individual  interest.  It  is  for  the  interest  of 
democracy  that  its  young  people  should  be 
trained  for  all  sorts  of  useful  careers,  and  that 
each  youth  should  be  trained  for  the  career  in 
which  he  can  best  succeed.  In  particular,  it 
is  for  the  interest  of  democracy  that  all  the 
human  "sports"  should  be  discovered,  de- 
veloped, and  helped  to  the  precise  career  best 
fitted  to  give  play  to  each  individual's  peculiar 
powers.  It  ought  to  be  one  of  the  visible  re- 
sults of  universal  education,  and  of  the  mo- 
bility of  social  layers  in  a  democracy,  that  all 
the  "sports"  are  saved  for  special  careers  of 
usefulness,  rather  than  lost  in  the  average 
multitude. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  all  the  civ- 
ilized nations  discovered  that  education  is 
needed  for  every  human  occupation,  contrary 


48  IN  EDUCATION 

to  the  opinion  of  Plato,  who  taught  that  the 
laboring  class  had  no  need  of  any  education; 
hence,  the  recent  estabHshment  of  universal 
education  among  all  the  civilized  nations, 
earliest  in  those  nations  v^hich  v^ere  largely 
Protestant.  This  collective  interest,  though 
in  reality  identical  v^ith  the  interest  of  every 
human  individual,  nevertheless  induces  an 
extraordinary  interference  with  individual 
liberty  at  sensitive  points.  For  example,  the 
state  laws  which  compel  parents  to  send  their 
children  to  school  up  to  the  fourteenth  or  six- 
teenth year,  and  the  laws  which  compel  towns 
and  cities  to  maintain  schools  during  a  definite 
number  of  months  in  every  year,  are  direct 
interferences  with  individual  rights  and  local 
rights,  which  used  to  be  regarded  as  very 
precious.  Parents  are  no  longer  free  to  de- 
termine themselves  how  extensive  the  educa- 
tion of  their  children  shall  be,  or  when  their 
children  shall  begin  to  contribute  to  the  family 
support.  Counties,  towns,  or  districts  cannot 
decide  for  themselves  how  long  their  schools 
shall  be  kept  each  year.    In  short,  collectivism, 


UTILITARIANISM  IN  EDUCATION  49 

seeking  its  own  interest — that  is,  the  interest 
of  the  mass — and  often  balked  in  the  pursuit, 
decides  that  individuaHsm  cannot  be  trusted 
to  produce  the  results  it  desires,  and  proceeds 
to  use  compulsion  to  secure  a  result  which  is 
as  beneficent  to  the  individual  as  it  is  to 
society. 

There  has  been  within  the  last  thirty  years 
an  outbreak  of  educational  exhortation  to  the 
effect  that  education  comes  not  by  absorption 
of  learning,  but  by  practice  in  doing,  that  ^- 
formation  is  not  the  object  of  education,  but 
jkill_aiid_jTiental  capacity;  and  hence,  that 
popular  educatiorTshould  from  beginning  to 
end  be  directed  to  the  training  of  the  senses 
and  the  acquisition  of  skill,  as  well  as  to  the 
training  of  the  memory  and  of  the  reasoning 
faculties.  This  doctrine  is  simply  a  revival 
of  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  teaching. 
Montaigne  insisted  that  training  through  the 
ancient  languages,  and  the  grammatical  and 
rhetorical  learning  which  grew  up  about  them, 
was  not  suited  to  a  gentleman  or  a  man  of 
action.     He  advocated   strongly  preparation 


IN  EDUCATION 


in  youth  for  the  life-career.  He  maintained 
that  the  important  thing  to  teach  a  boy  was 
"what  he  himself  ought  to  do  when  he  becomes 
a  man."  Undoubtedly,  the  exercise  of  pro- 
ductive faculties,  the  training  of  the  judgment, 
and  the  inspiration  of  noble  sentiments  should 
be  the  main  objects  in  education.  The  great 
problem  of  education  is  how  to  train  up  chil- 
dren into  dutiful  and  loving  men  and  women, 
capable  of  useful  action.  In  training  the  indi- 
vidual for  his  utmost  capacity  in  action  much 
information  may  incidentally  be  given,  and  the 
memory  may  incidentally  be  trained,  perhaps 
to  a  high  degree;  but  the  object  and  intent  of 
the  educator  should  be  to  develop  capacity  for 
action.  This  is  an  intensely  individualistic 
process,  because  it  demands  the  discovery  of 
each  child's  pecuHar  individual  capacity  or 
faculty,  and  the  careful  training  of  that  faculty. 
Neither  the  discovery  nor  the  training  can  be 
accomplished  unless  the  teacher  is  intimate 
with  the  child.  Hence  large  classes  are  un- 
desirable, and  annual  or  semiannual  changes 
of  teachers,  and  indeed  all  mass  work.    More- 


THINGS  AND  WORDS  IN  EDUCATION     51 

over,  the  individual  quality  which  may  prove 
the  main  source  of  success  and  happiness 
in  life  may  be  something  slight,  subtle,  or 
late-developed,  and  therefore  hard  to  discern. 
Children  and  adolescents  differ  widely  in  re- 
gard to  the  ages  at  which  the  same  degree  of 
maturity  is  attained.  One  child  is  as  mature 
at  ten  as  another  at  fifteen,  and  one  youth  is 
as  mature  at  seventeen  as  another  at  twenty- 
two.  There  is  no  phenomenon  more  indi- 
vidualistic than  this,  and  none  which  tests 
more  severely  the  discernment  and  judgment 
of  the  teacher,  or  of  the  superintendent  who  is 
obliged  to  balance  the  interest  of  individual 
pupils  against  the  general  interest  of  a  school 
or  a  system  of  schools. 

One  who  advocates  the  training  of  the 
senses,  as  properly  a  much  larger  part  of  edu- 
cation than  it  has  been  during  the  past  hun- 
dred years,  need  not  be  supposed  to  propose 
the  abandonment  of  instruction  in  words  and 
literature.  Comenius  in  the  seventeenth 
century  taught  that  young  people  were  to 
learn  about  things,  but  at  the  same  time  were 


52  IN  EDUCATION 

to  acquire  in  the  vernacular  and  in  Latin — 
the  international  language — the  words  which 
stood  for  the  things;  and  Ruskin  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  declared  the  same 
truth  when  he  said:  "To  be  taught  to  see  is 
to  gain  word  and  thought  at  once,  and  both 
true."  Locke  is  another  educational  author- 
ity who  regards  the  individual  child,  and  ad- 
vocates taking  account  all  through  education 
of  the  coming  adult  life.  Thus  he  says: 
"The  main,  I  had  almost  said  the  only,  thing 
to  be  considered  in  every  action  of  a  child  is, 
what  influence  it  will  have  upon  his  mind, 
what  habit  it  tends  to,  or  is  likely  to  settle  in 
him,  how  it  will  become  him  when  he  is 
bigger,  and  if  it  be  encouraged  whither  it  will 
lead  him  when  he  is  grown  up." 

Recent  years  have  given  several  interesting 
illustrations  of  the  fact  that  society  at  large 
has  a  keen  interest  in  the  proper  education 
of  every  citizen  and  of  the  children  of  every 
family.  There  has  been  active  discussion 
concerning  the  expediency  of  an  educational 
test  for  the  admission  of  immigrants,  and  of 


NO  FREEDOM   TO   BE  BARBAROUS  53 

an  educational  test  of  qualification  for  the 
exercise  of  the  suffrage,  and  efforts  have 
been  made  to  embody  correct  principles  of 
action  on  these  subjects  in  legislation.  The 
republic  as  a  whole  feels  alarm  at  the  ad- 
mission of  millions  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  who  come  from  countries  where  uni- 
f  versal  education  has  not  been  established. 
The  repubhc  dreads  the  admission  of  multi- 
tudes of  people  who  have  not  received  training 
enough  to  keep  them  surely  out  of  the  criminal 
class,  or  whose  intelligence  is  so  slender  that 
they  cannot  maintain  themselves  and  their 
families  under  American  industrial  conditions, 
or  whose  habits  of  life  are  such  as  to  preclude 
the  bringing  up  of  their  children  to  cleanliness 
and  good  behavior  in  the  absence  of  govern- 
mental supervision  and  control.  The  negro 
problem  in  the  Southern  States  has  also 
brought  home  to  the  American  people  the 
necessity  of  public  education  for  all  classes 
and  races,  if  society  is  to  enjoy  a  reasonable 
degree  of  moral  comfort  and  to  make  unin- 
terrupted  progress  as  regards  social  order, 


54  IN  EDUCATION 

earning  its  livelihood,  controlling  vice,  and 
winning  rational  enjoyments.  Americans 
generally  believe  that  no  part  of  the  whole 
can  be  really  prosperous,  comfortable,  and 
happy,  if  any  part  be  sunk  in  ignorance  and 
barbarism.  If,  then,  any  portion  of  the  popu- 
lation says  either  in  words  or  by  deeds:  "We 
do  not  care  to  be  civilized.  We  prefer  to  re- 
main ignorant  and  barbarous,"  it  is  expedient 
and  right  that  the  civilized  parts  should  say 
to  the  barbarous  part:  "We  shall  not  regard 
your  individual  preference  to  be  barbarous. 
You  shall  be  civilized,  or  at  least  your  children 
shall  be."  This  is  a  strong  case  of  collectiv- 
ism overriding  individualism  to  improve 
numerous  individuals  and  hence  the  mass. 

Certain  distinct  educational  efforts  in  re- 
cent years  illustrate  admirably  the  domina- 
tion of  modern  collectivism  over  old-fashioned 
individualism.  A  state  university  is  main- 
tained by  taxes  levied  on  private  property. 
Every  tax-paying  citizen  contributes  to  the 
support  of  the  university,  although  he  may 
have  no  child  to  profit  by  it,  no  interest  in 


STATE  UNIVERSITIES  55 

any  of  the  subjects  it  teaches,  and  no  direct 
use  for  any  of  the  professions  for  which  the 
university  prepares  men  and  women.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  at  any  one  time  only  an  insig- 
nificant minority  of  the  families  in  the  state 
are  making  any  use  of  the  university,  or  are 
conscious  of  being  directly  helped  by  it. 
Nevertheless,  the  state  legislature  makes  large 
appropriations  for  the  university's  mainte- 
nance, and  these  appropriations  support  the 
teaching  not  only  of  practical  or  utilitarian 
subjects,  like  agriculture  and  engineering, 
but  also  of  languages,  literature,  philosophy, 
history,  and  economic  theory.  The  majority 
of  the  people  of  the  state  recognize  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  collective  interest  to  maintain  ad- 
vanced teaching  in  all  subjects,  and  in  accord- 
ance with  this  view  the  state  legislature  uses 
the  taxing  power  to  compel  all  parents  and 
all  productive  industries  within  the  state  to 
contribute  to  the  support  of  the  state  uni- 
versity. 

The  general  support  of  secondary  schools, 
to  which  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  children 


56  IN  EDUCATION 

of  the  country  ever  resort,  is  another  illus- 
tration of  the  supremacy  of  collectivism  at 
the  present  day.  Within  ten  years  there  has 
been  an  extraordinary  development  of  new 
secondary  schools  throughout  the  United 
States,  and  especially  in  the  Southern  States; 
and  all  over  the  country  there  is  an  increasing 
resort  to  these  schools,  and  new  kinds  of  secon- 
dary schools  are  to-day  being  established,  such 
as  the  mechanic  arts  high  schools,  and  the 
high  schools  of  commerce — and  all  this  be- 
cause collectivism,  having  the  power  and  the 
faith,  pays  little  attention  to  what  may  be  the 
objections  of  individuals  to  increased  public 
expenditure.  Again,  society  has  lately  made 
up  its  mind  that  it  has  a  great  interest  in  the 
improvement  of  agricultural  methods,  and  in 
the  increase  of  intelligence  among  farmers 
and  farm-hands.  Accordingly  it  has  set  in 
operation  agencies  for  carrying  instruction  in 
agricultural  processes,  including  the  breeding 
of  desirable  varieties  of  plants  and  animals, 
directly  to  the  farms.  This  is  not  the  training 
of  youth,  but  the  spreading  of  information 


INSTRUCTING  FARMERS  57 

among  adult  persons  already  at  work  in 
agriculture.  The  national  government  is 
spending  many  thousands  of  dollars  a  year  in 
providing  itinerant  instructors,  and  in  estab- 
lishing, with  the  co-operation  of  the  owners, 
model  farms,  through  which  the  good  results 
of  improved  methods  can  be  exhibited  to 
whole  neighborhoods.  In  this  work  the  Gen- 
eral Education  Board,  endowed  by  Mr.  John 
D.  Rockefeller,  co-operates  in  several  of  the 
Southern  States  with  a  liberal  expenditure  of 
money.  The  departments  of  agriculture  in 
the  state  universities  and  the  agricultural 
schools  and  stations  established  under  the 
Land  Grant  Act  of  1862,  and  the  Acts  sup- 
plementary thereto,  are  actively  engaged  in 
teaching  farmers  throughout  their  respective 
states  what  great  increase  of  products  may 
be  made  to  result  from  the  use  of  selected 
seed  and  appropriate  manures,  from  the  im- 
proved mechanical  treatment  of  soils,  and  the 
skilful  adaptation  of  crop  to  soil.  The  agri- 
cultural department  of  every  state  university 
offers  short  courses  of  instruction  without  fee 


58  IN  EDUCATION 

to  young  men  from  the  farms  of  the  state,  at 
the  seasons  of  the  year  when  they  can  best 
leave  their  farms,  and  then  enHsts  these  short- 
term  students  in  the  distribution  throughout 
their  respective  neighborhoods  of  good  seed 
and  of  all  the  information  they  have  acquired. 
These  wide-spread  and  well-directed  exertions 
are  not  made  in  the  interest  of  the  individual 
farmer,  but  because  of  the  collective  interest 
of  the  whole  community  in  the  intelligent 
competency  of  farmers  in  general.  The 
farm-hand,  or  the  isolated  farmer  who  does  his 
own  work,  used  to  be  the  typ^  of  the  dull,  un- 
progressive  laborer.  It  is  the  collective  in- 
terest of  society  which  is  making  him  a  well- 
informed,  active-minded  man,  who  knows 
enough  to  breed  good  stock,  to  get  good  seeds 
and  fertilizers  appropriate  to  his  soil,  to  use 
machinery  and  tools  of  the  best  sort,  and  to 
buy  and  sell  to  advantage.  States,  counties, 
and  towns  take  a  hand  in  this  good  work  by 
putting  agriculture  into  rural  schools  as  a 
regular  subject  of  instruction,  and  meeting 
the  expenditures  necessary  to  make  this  in- 


INDUSTRIAL  TRAINING  59 

struction  interesting  and  vivid.  The  democ- 
racy wants  to  have  all  the  useful  careers  well 
filled,  and  believes  that  education  is  desirable 
in  preparation  for  every  human  occupation; 
but  it  especially  feels  that  education  is  needed 
for  the  advantageous  pursuit  of  that  funda- 
mental occupation  on  which  the  supplies  of 
human  food  depend.  Here  again,  collectiv- 
ism does  not  trust  individualism  to  produce 
the  results  it  desires.  On  the  contrary,  it 
says:  "The  pecuniary  interest  of  the  indi- 
vidual farmer  has  failed  to  open  his  mind, 
stimulate  his  faculties,  and  rouse  his  ambi- 
tion. The  public  resources  of  the  com- 
munity must  therefore  be  used  to  inform 
and  stimulate  him."  The  urban  democracy 
holds  this  opinion  more  strongly  than  the 
rural. 

Within  the  few  years  just  past  there  has 
been  a  wide-spread  movement  to  introduce 
into  the  public  schools,  both  elementary  and 
secondary,  some  real  industrial  training,  cap- 
able of  interesting  the  children,  and  of  giving 
them  some  skill  which  will  be  of  service  in 


6o  IN  EDUCATION 

their  future  lives.  This  movement  was  in 
part  intended  to  remedy  a  great  evil  in  the 
working  of  the  American  public  school  system, 
namely,  the  premature  leaving  of  the  schools 
by  the  great  majority  of  the  children;  but  it 
also  proposed  a  fundamental  educational 
reform.  The  proposals  of  the  reformers  were 
nothing  but  direct  returns  to  the  teachings  of 
Pestalozzi  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  His  fundamental  principle  in  edu- 
cation was  to  awaken  the  will-power  of  the 
children  by  inspiring  them  with  the  spiritual 
motives  of  love  and  hope,  and  with  a  sense  of 
the  good  there  is  for  them  in  school  work,  and 
thereby  determining  the  right  action  of  their 
wills.  After  much  successful  and  unsuccess- 
ful experience,  Pestalozzi  put  this  principle 
into  a  few  cogent  words  in  the  letter  in  which 
he  gives  an  account  of  his  disastrous  experi- 
ence at  Stanz  in  1799:  "Man  readily  accepts 
what  is  good,  and  the  child  readily  listens  to 
It;  but  it  is  not  for  you,  master  and  educator, 
that  he  wants  it,  but  for  himself.  ...  It 
must  be  a  good  which  is  good  in  itself,  and  by 


HAND   AND   BOOK   WORK   TOGETHER      6i 

the  nature  of  things,  and  which  the  child  can 
recognize  as  good.  .  .  .  Whatever  he  does 
gladly,  whatever  gains  him  credit,  whatever 
tends  to  accomplish  his  great  hopes,  whatever 
awakens  his  powers  and  enables  him  truly  to 
say:  *I  can,'  all  this  he  wills."  Pestalozzi's 
method  was  to  combine  manual  work  in  the 
garden  and  fields  in  summer  and  in  the  house 
in  winter,  with  lessons  in  conversation,  read- 
ing, writing,  and  committing  to  memory. 
He  dealt  almost  exclusively  with  the  poorest 
and  least  fortunate  of  Swiss  children,  and  al- 
though his  resources  were  always  scanty,  he 
never  failed  to  improve  their  health,  strength, 
and  courage,  and  to  make  them  capable  not 
only  of  steady  manual  work,  but  of  good 
book  work  also. 

A  twentieth-century  movement  is  thus  hark- 
ing back  to  an  eighteenth-century  reform  in 
education;  but  it  has  to  contend  with  the  new 
difficulties  which  the  rush  to  cities  has  cre- 
ated. Pestalozzi  dealt  chiefly  with  children 
who  lived  in  villages  or  small  towns,  which 
had  been  devastated  by  war  or  pestilence,  or 


62  IN  EDUCATION 

both.  The  hope  of  his  Hfe  was  to  contribute 
to  lifting  the  peasantry  out  of  their  misery 
by  the  wise  education  of  the  children.  The 
movement  toward  industrial  education  to-day 
is  based  on  a  similar  hope  and  expectation. 
It  hopes  to  uplift  the  least  fortunate  classes. 
It  desires  to  prevent  the  great  majority  of 
American  children  from  leaving  school  at 
fourteen  as  unskilled  laborers,  having  re- 
ceived at  school  no  furtherance  toward  a  use- 
ful occupation,  and  having  lost  interest  in 
school  studies,  because  they  fail  to  recognize 
in  those  studies  any  good  for  themselves. 
The  school  studies  do  not  accomplish  the 
child's  hopes,  awaken  his  powers,  or  enable 
him  truly  to  say:  "I  can." 
'  This  evil  of  stopping  education  without 
having  acquired  any  form  of  skill,  and  with- 
out training  toward  any  specific  career,  is  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  elementary  schools. 
Many  high-school  graduates  are  in  precisely 
the  same  situation,  and  some  college  gradu- 
ates. The  reason  is  that  the  achievement- 
motive  and  the  career-motive  have  been  neg- 


MOTIVE-POWERS  IN  EDUCATION  63 

lected  by  school  and  college  managers  and 
teachers,  and  the  same  authorities  have  neg- 
lected manual  work  and  the  training  of  the 
senses,  in  favor  of  book  work  and  memory- 
training.  Considering  that  a  long  series  of 
great  writers  on  education,  from  the  sixteenth 
century  down,  have  protested  against  book 
work  as  the  chief  element  in  the  schooling 
of  children,  is  it  not  strange  that  American 
schools  have  been  so  slow  to  recognize  the 
value  of  eye,  ear,  and  hand  work  in  developing 
mental  and  moral  powers,  and  so  much  afraid 
of  utilitarian  motives  in  education  ?  The 
American  belief  in  freedom  and  the  rights  of 
the  individual  has  found  very  scanty  expres- 
sion in  the  conduct  of  American  schools. 
Even  Herbart's  doctrine  that  all  school  work 
should  interest  the  child  has  been  slowly 
and  reluctantly  accepted  by  many  American 
teachers,  who  seem  to  have  believed  that 
mental  "discipHne"  can  be  imparted  only  by 
forcing  a  child  to  work  on  uncongenial,  or 
even  impossible  tasks.  At  last  the  leaders 
of  American  education  begin  to  realize  that 


64  IN  EDUCATION 

the  end  of  education  is  the  development  of 
internal  motive-powers,  such  as  the  desire  to 
excel,  the  satisfaction  that  comes  with  achieve- 
ment, the  imitation  of  gentleness  and  nobility, 
and  the  love  of  freedom.  In  order  to  effi- 
cient collective  action,  the  schools  and  colleges 
must  apprehend  and  utilize  the  effective  mo- 
tives of  individualism.  The  reform  of  Ameri- 
can education  in  these  respects  cannot  be 
brought  about  by  individual  action,  although, 
as  in  other  centuries,  a  few  leaders  may  show 
the  way  to  reform.  It  is  only  the  public 
schools  that  can  effectively  embody  on  an 
adequate  scale  the  new,  or  rather,  the  revived, 
ideals.  The  reform  must,  therefore,  be  an 
immense  collective  operation. 

A  democratic  structure  of  society  imposes 
new  duties  on  public  education,  and  demands 
of  it  a  great  variety  of  new  services.  The  free- 
dom of  individual  action  which  characterizes 
a  democracy  results  in  great  inequalities  of 
condition;  and  the  immense  material  resources 
of  modern  democratic  society  create  an  end- 
less  variety   of  occupations   and   grades   of 


TRANSMISSION  OF  EDUCATION  65 

serviceableness,  which  match  an  endless  va- 
riety of  capacity  in  the  individual  citizens. 
Democratic  wealth  and  democratic  education 
combine  to  create  among  the  citizens  many 
different  levels  of  serviceableness,  and  many 
different  grades  of  physical  refinement  and 
mental  cultivation.  In  a  democracy  education 
is  the  chief  factor  in  determining  the  social 
classification,  although  birth  contributes,  since 
birth  often  determines  the  early  material  and 
spiritual  environment.  The  education  of  the 
child,  as  Rabelais,  Montaigne,  Comenius, 
Locke,  Rousseau,  and  Pestalozzi  understood 
education,  is  the  only  way  in  a  democracy  of 
transmitting  high  position  from  one  generation 
to  another.  The  transmission  of  mere  money 
will  not  accomplish  this  result;  and,  moreover, 
intellectual  and  artistic  tastes,  and  personal 
excellences  of  body  and  soul,  are  more  surely 
transmissible  than  property. 

The  demands  of  democratic  collectivism 
being  in  many  respects  novel  and  being  also 
very  various,  and  American  schools  and.  col- 
leges  having    been   built,   Hke   the    English, 


66  IN  EDUCATION 

on  sixteenth-century  plans  and  models,  it  is 
obvious  that  profound  modifications  of  the 
American  educational  system  are  necessary  in 
order  to  meet  these  needs.  Wise  and  com- 
petent individuals  can  lead  the  way,  as  when 
a  single  rich  man  endows  and  sets  at  work  a 
trade  school,  or  a  technical  institute,  or  a  col- 
lege or  university  with  a  wide  range  of  instruc- 
tion; but  in  order  to  give  such  good  work 
permanence,  the  individual  benefactor  must 
immediately  call  to  his  aid  the  collective  forces 
of  society,  to  incorporate  his  institution,  and 
enlist  in  its  support  a  body  of  teachers,  and  in 
many  cases  a  large  community.  Then  the 
methods  devised  and  illustrated  in  one  private 
institution  must  be  adopted  and  imitated,  so 
far  as  may  be,  by  the  public  school  systems, 
and  be  maintained  by  the  collective  intelli- 
gence and  resources.  The  idea  that  useful 
knowledge  cannot  be  cultural  must  be  dis- 
missed. Every  possible  concrete  illustration 
must  be  used  throughout  elementary  and 
secondary  teaching.  Every  possible  applica- 
tion must  be  made  of  each  abstract  principle. 


CRAFTSMANSHIP  AND  EDUCATION        67 

Every  means  of  illustrating  the  usefulness  of 
a  subject  must  be  carefully  provided.  In  or- 
der to  meet  the  needs  of  all  classes  of  citizens 
and  of  the  community  as  a  whole,  certain  sub- 
jects should  be  added  to  all  school  programmes, 
as,  for  example,  hygiene,  drawing,  and  music, 
and  to  the  programmes  of  rural  elementary 
schools,  agriculture,  and  of  urban  schools,  the 
nature  of  municipal  business.  In  the  interest 
of  children  who  must  go  to  work  at  an  early 
age  in  order  to  contribute  to  the  support  of 
their  families,  part-time  continuation  schools 
should  be  provided  at  public  expense,  and  for 
older  children  trade  schools  in  large  vari- 
ety. The  experience  of  the  last  hundred  years 
in  the  manufacturing  countries,  and  the  new 
countries,  proves  that  individuahsm,  that  is, 
the  immediate  self-interest  of  a  child  or  its 
parents,  cannot  be  depended  on  to  secure  the 
transmission  from  one  generation  to  another 
of  the  skill  in  numerous  arts  and  crafts  al- 
ready acquired  by  the  race  as  a  whole.  In 
order  to  preserve  what  has  been  already  won, 
collectivism  must  provide  for  the  transmission 


68  IN  EDUCATION 

not  only  of  the  skill  of  the  artisan,  but  of  his 
right  spirit  in  work. 

It  does  not  follow  that  if  all  these  right  pro- 
visions were  made  for  the  transmission  of 
intelligent  skill  in  the  great  variety  of  mod- 
ern arts  and  occupations,  democratic  society 
would  become  subdivided  into  a  great  num- 
ber of  distinct  layers  or  classes  of  a  fixed  and 
impenetrable  sort.  The  variety  of  occupa- 
tions and  services  would  exist,  and  social 
groups  would  exist  within  the  different  layers; 
but  also  the  unusual  individual  would  retain 
large  freedom  to  move  from  one  layer  to 
another. 

Two  of  the  most  important  educational 
movements  of  the  last  twenty-five  years  in  the 
United  States  have  had  to  do  with  young 
people  who  have  passed  the  common-school 
age,  and  with  their  parents  and  older  friends. 
One  of  these  is  the  movement  for  the  use  of 
public  school-houses  as  social  centres,  that  is, 
as  places  where  the  youth  and  grown  people 
of  a  neighborhood  may  find,  without  cost,  or 
at  trivial  cost,  pleasant,  interesting,  and  in- 


,tWDLD  BE  LIFELONG        69 


structive  occupations  in  the  evenings.  This 
movement  recognized  two  conspicuous  facts, 
first,  that  education  should  not  be  an  affair 
of  childhood  only,  but  a  continuous  process 
throughout  life;  and  secondly,  that  the  pro- 
vision of  the  means  and  opportunities  for 
good  play  and  refined  entertainment  is  an 
important  collective  function  in  modern  so- 
ciety. The  movement  has  as  yet  gained  but 
little  force  in  the  United  States,  although  its 
merits  have  been  demonstrated  in  several  im- 
portant centres  of  population;  and  for  this 
reason  it  urgently  demands  the  attention  of 
all  educational  reformers  and  social  workers. 
This  is  not  paternalism,  or  socialism,  or  an 
imitation  of  the  Roman  "bread  and  games" 
for  the  populace.  It  is  just  intelligent  and 
sympathetic  educational  collectivism,  fighting 
evil  and  degradation  with  good.  It  is  the  con- 
tinuous use  of  the  public  school  "plant"  for 
educational  and  upHfting  purposes.  There  is 
no  doubt  as  to  the  nature  of  the  activities 
which  should  be  in  constant  play  in  such 
centres.     Individualistic  commercialism   has 


70  IN  ETTCrC'Al.^RA^. 


demonstrated  what  the  available  means  of 
instruction  and  enjoyment  are;  it  remains 
for  altruistic  collectivism  to  use  them  effec- 
tively. They  are  music,  instrumental  and  vo- 
cal, lectures  with  ample  illustrations,  moving 
pictures,  dramas,  plays,  tableaux,  recitals,  dra- 
matic readings,  dancing,  and  indoor  games, 
all  these  taken  part  in  and  enjoyed  by  youJig 
and  old  together,  and  guided  by  skilful  \nd 
sympathetic  teachers  employed  by  the  public. 
Every  city  and  large  town  in  the  United  States 
should  organize  these  means  of  continuous 
education  and  recreation  just  as  effectively 
as  it  organizes  and  conducts  the  elementary 
and  secondary  schools,  and  pay  for  them  as 
wilHngly.  Intelligent  collectivism  should  pro- 
vide all  these  means  of  enjoyment,  freed  from 
vice  and  from  temptation  to  vice,  and  should 
not  leave  the  bulk  Cftf  the  population  to  get 
their  glimpses  of  joy  and  gladness  in  resorts 
where  the  innocent  are  brought  into  contact 
with  the  vicious,  and  where  vicious  indul- 
gences by  the  patrons  heighten  the  profits  of 
unscrupulous  proprietors.     It  would  not  be 


PUBLIC  MEANS  FOR  PLEASURES  71 

inconsistent  with  the  general  scheme  of  social 
centres,  or  limit  their  usefulness,  if  a  moderate 
admission  fee,  like  five  cents  or  ten  cents, 
were  charged  for  the  more  attractive  enter- 
tainments, all  receipts  being  applied  to  equip- 
ment and  fittings. 

The  American  industrial  city  has  been  de- 
veloped since  the  factory  system  came  in, 
labor  was  minutely  divided,  and  the  popula- 
tion crowded  into  cities.  In  the  couaitry, 
hunting,  shooting,  fishing,  and  many  other 
interesting  sports  were  easily  accessible,  and 
therefore  common,  and  a  free  out-of-door  life 
and  the  companionship  of  domestic  animals 
lent  themselves  to  youthful  imaginings  and  as- 
pirations. In  the  congested  cities  there  have 
been  no  equivalents  for  such  wholesome  en- 
joyments. The  fact  that  the  early  settlers  on 
the  coast  of  the  United  States  and  the  pioneers 
across  the  continent  have  been  in  the  main 
Protestants  of  a  sombre  sort,  accounts  in  part 
for  the  absence  of  provision  at  public  expense 
for  the  pleasures  of  the  people.  The  CathoHc 
Church  has  always  taken  a  wise  interest  in 


72  IN  EDUCATION 

providing  for  the  working  people  holidays, 
processions  and  pageants  out-of-doors,  and 
indoors  interesting  commemorative  observ- 
ances, occasional  stirring  revivals  of  religious 
emotion,  gorgeous  spectacles,  and  great  music, 
and  has  used  profusely  for  the  enjoyment  and 
elevation  of  the  people  the  resources  of  archi- 
tecture, sculpture,  and  painting.  The  Ameri- 
can Protestant  churches,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  made  only  the  slightest  contributions  to 
popular  enjoyment.  If  three-quarters  of  the 
American  people  are  going  to  live  in  tall  tene- 
ments on  narrow  streets,  and  to  engage  in 
repetitive  indoor  work  from  youth  to  age,  it 
is  indispensable  that  the  forces  of  society  at 
large  should  be  vigorously  used  to  provide 
these  workers  with  the  means  of  gratifying 
their  irresistible  longing  for  natural  joys,  and 
of  giving  themselves  and  their  children  visions 
of  a  freer  and  more  expansive  life — whether 
that  life  be  something  actually  achieved  by 
human  beings  in  the  past,  or  imagined  for 
the  future. 
'^    The  second  movement  toward  continuous 


OPEN-AIR  ENJOYMENTS  73 

education  and  the  provision  of  means  of  pub- 
lic enjoyment,  intended  to  combat  the  evils 
accompanying  concentration  of  population, 
is  the  movement  in  favor  of  play-grounds, 
open-air  parlors,  bathing  places,  boulevards, 
gardens,  and  parks.  It  is  only  by  collective 
action  through  the  use  of  public  resources 
that  this  movement  can  be  carried  on.  Indi- 
vidual action  cannot  be  depended  on  either 
to  produce  or  to  maintain  it,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  there  have  been  some  striking 
individual  gifts  toward  that  public  purpose. 
European  collectivism  preceded  American  in 
taking  hold  of  this  great  subject;  but  a  few 
of  the  American  cities,  such  as  Boston,  New 
York,  Chicago,  and  Washington,  have  made 
much  progress  toward  the  adequate  develop- 
ment of  public  grounds,  and  many  cities  have 
good  plans  under  consideration.  All  such 
open  spaces  have  a  strong  educational  effect; 
but  it  is  the  smallest  places  which,  under  the 
name  of  playgrounds  and  outdoor  parlors, 
have  the  most  direct  educational  effects;  they 
require  for  their  best  utilization  the  continuous 


74  IN  EDUCATION 

employment  of  teachers  or  directors.  Collec- 
tivism must  be  prepared  not  only  to  police  all 
these  open  grounds,  but  to  provide  teachers  of 
outdoor  plays  and  exercises,  just  as  much  as 
it  provides  teachers  in  the  public  schools. 
Playgrounds  without  teachers  may  do  posi- 
tive harm  to  children,  just  as  public  commons, 
gardens,  or  parks  v^ithout  policemen  may  do 
much  harm  as  v^ell  as  much  good.  In  gen- 
eral, American  working  people  know  much 
less  than  their  European  brethren  about  the 
way  to  utilize  for  enjoyment  and  health  public 
grounds,  whether  large  or  small. 

The  right  of  eminent  domain  is  essential  to 
the  procuring  of  adequate  public  grounds  in 
a  city  or  town  that  was  originally  laid  out 
without  them,  or  with  but  a  scanty  provision 
of  them.  This  right  is  an  extreme  case  of  the 
necessary  domination  of  collectivism  over  in- 
dividualism in  modern  society,  and  especially 
in  the  recent  developments  of  public  educa- 
tion. It  has  been  freely  exercised  of  late  by 
states  and  municipalities,  and  by  duly  author- 
ized commissions,  acting  for  the  public,  and 


PUBLIC  RESERVATIONS  75 

empowered  not  only  to  take  private  lands  but 
to  maintain  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  public 
the  areas  so  provided.  Another  method  of 
holding  open  areas,  large  or  small,  free  from 
taxation  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  public,  pro- 
vides for  the  co-operation  of  the  collective  in- 
terest with  the  individual  interest  through  the 
incorporation  of  trustees  to  hold  public  reser- 
vations free  of  taxes,  the  trustees  having  no 
right  of  eminent  domain,  and  acquiring  lands 
only  by  gift  or  purchase.  The  legislative 
action  under  which  such  trustees  exist  and  act 
is  a  good  example  of  dominant  collectivism 
co-operating  with  enlightened  and  beneficent 
individualism  for  the  promotion  of  public 
health,  enjoyment,  and  elevation  of  mind — or 
in  other  words,  for  public  education. 

In  considering  the  relation  of  collectivism 
to  individualism  in  education,  we  have  thus 
far  had  chiefly  in  mind  the  lower  grades  or 
regions  of  education,  such  as  the  primary  or 
elementary  school,  the  lower  technical  schools, 
and  the  public  secondary  schools.  It  is  time 
to  discuss  the  new  relations  of  the  learned  and 


76  IN  EDUCATION 

scientific  professions,  and  the  higher  walks  of 
business  and  corporation  services  to  the  men 
and  women  whose  training  has  been  prolonged 
through  professional  and  polytechnic  schools 
to  an  age  which  may  be  said  to  vary  from 
twenty-one  to  twenty-eight  years,  without 
taking  cognizance  of  abnormal  extensions. 
The  professions  of  law  and  medicine  used  to 
be  callings  which  gave  the  individual  member 
of  either  a  remarkable  degree  of  self-reliance 
and  personal  independence;  and  the  ministry 
was  a  calling  whose  members  were  not  re- 
sponsible to  the  community  at  large,  and  were 
regulated,  not  by  the  community  as  a  whole, 
but  by  the  ecclesiastical  organization  with 
which  each  was  affiliated.  The  members  of 
the  priesthood  were  under  the  control  of  a 
central  ecclesiastical  authority,  but  were 
themselves  in  a  position  of  authority  over  all 
other  social  ranks.  In  the  United  States  pro- 
fessional men  have  been  the  most  independent 
of  all  workers,  needing  no  machinery  except 
what  they  could  easily  own  themselves,  and 
no  money  capital,  except  that  required  for 


PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  77 

their  support  during  the  long  period  of  ed- 
ucation— and  the  latter  was  often  furnished 
by  parents  or  friends.  Moreover,  till  within 
forty  years  the  community  as  a  whole  did  not 
regulate  access  to  the  professions,  or  make 
practitioners  conform  to  regulative  laws.  It 
is  far  otherwise  to-day.  Collective  action  has 
been  taken  with  regard  to  admission  to  many 
of  the  professions  and  even  to  some  trades, 
and  the  practice  of  most  of  the  professions  and 
many  of  the  trades  must  conform  to  restrictive^ 
legislation.  This  new  collective  action  has; 
all  been  benevolently  intended  for  the  protec- 
tion of  society  at  large  against  ignorant  prac- 
titioners of  the  professions  and  trades;  but 
it  has  unquestionably  imposed  limits  on  an 
individualistic  freedom  which  was  formerly) 
highly  valued.  Incidentally  this  protective! 
legislation  has  promoted  the  spread  and  im- 
proved the  quality  of  professional  education 
and  of  the  training  for  the  trades  affected. 
This  improvement  of  professional  education 
in  the  United  States  in  consequence  of  collec- 
tive pressure  co-operating  with  individual  in- 


78  IN  EDUCATION 

itiative  is  one  of  the  most  important  educa- 
tional advances  made  in  this  country  during 
the  past  forty  years.  It  could  not  have  been 
accomplished  without  a  large  amount  of  col- 
lective action  overriding  individual  rights. 
Much  work  of  this  kind  remains  to  be  done, 
either  by  government  or  by  independent  insti- 
tutions which  have  a  strong  influence  on  pub- 
lic opinion. 

Another  cause  of  the  increasing  regulation 
of  practice  in  the  professions  and  many  of  the 
trades  is  the  increasing  complication  of  both 
corporate  and  municipal  business,  and  the  in- 
creasing amount  of  such  complicated  and 
difficult  business.  In  all  the  great  industries 
and  throughout  all  governmental  work,  na- 
tional, state,  and  municipal,  the  change  has 
come  about  which  is  illustrated  in  the  differ- 
ence between  an  old-fashioned  seventy-four 
gun  ship  and  a  modern  battle-ship.  The  na- 
val machine  itself  has  become  immeasurably 
more  complex  and  more  difficult  to  use,  ad- 
just, and  direct;  so  that  both  in  officers  and 
men  a  higher  degree  of  individual  intelligence 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  79 

and  a  greater  skill  are  required.  Many  of  the 
men  need  to  be  machinists,  and  all  the  officers 
need  to  be  experts.  So  in  mihtary  matters, 
the  shoulder  to  shoulder,  automatic  move- 
ments being  no  longer  available,  individual 
intelligence,  skill,  and  initiative  are  needed  in 
the  private  soldier.  All  business,  whether 
public  or  private,  needs  to  be  directed  by  men 
of  long  training  and  general  intelligence,  who 
deserve  the  title  of  expert.  The  population 
as  a  whole  are  beginning  to  perceive  this;  and 
the  first  effect  is  to  increase  the  number  of 
youth  who  go  through  the  secondary  schools 
and  the  technical  schools,  colleges,  and  univer-; 
sities.  An  urgent  collective  need  determines  a 
multitude  of  individual  careers.  The  change 
is  greatest  in  business  administration;  because 
it  used  to  be  supposed  that  the  best  way  to 
train  a  young  man  for  business  success  was  to 
bring  him  up  from  early  youth  in  a  private 
business,  without  giving  him  any  long  school- 
ing or  delaying  him  to  procure  a  comprehen- 
sive training  of  his  senses  and  his  reasoning 
faculties.      This    highly    individualistic,    or 


8o  7A^  EDUCATION 

rather,  non-social  conception,  is  now  passing 
away.  The  increase  of  population,  the  con- 
gestion of  population  in  cities,  that  division 
of  labor  which  makes  each  class  of  laborers 
absolutely  dependent  on  the  fidelity  and  suc- 
cess of  many  other  classes  of  laborers,  and  the 
new  social  functions  of  government  have  con- 
curred to  bring  about  the  adoption  on  a  large 
scale  of  better  views  concerning  the  impor- 
tance of  thorough  schooling  to  a  successful 
career  in  business.  It  is  the  day  of  the  expert 
in  all  sorts  of  business,  in  the  professions,  in- 
cluding teaching,  and  in  every  department  of 
governmental  administration.  Now,  the  ex- 
pert is  always  a  highly  individualistic  product; 
but  he  is  a  product  which  an  intelligent  collec- 
tivism calls  for,  regulates,  and  supports.  He 
is  also  a  capitalist,  but  a  peculiar  kind  of  capi- 
talist, whose  sympathies  are  more  likely  to  be 
with  the  hard-working  many  than  with  the 
luxurious  few.  His  trained  brains  are  an  in- 
dividual possession,  owned  and  operated  solely 
by  their  possessor.  They  are  capital  because 
they  are  the  unspent  product  of  diligent  labor; 


COLLECTIVISM  NOT  SOCIALISM  8i 

but  they  are  individualistic  capital,  like  the 
farm,  or  the  horse  and  wagon,  or  the  kit  of 
tools  which  a  man  has  bought  with  his  own  or 
his  father's  savings  and  uses  himself.  Every 
free  nation  abounds  in  this  sort  of  intellectual 
capitalist,  product  of  individualism  and  ser- 
vant of  collectivism. 

The  effects  of  collectivism  on  education 
are  thus  seen  to  have  been  broad  and  deep; 
but  many  of  them  have  been  produced  by 
active  co-operation  between  collective  and  in- 
dividualistic forces.  This  co-operative  action 
strikingly  illustrates  the  difference  between 
collectivism  and  socialism.  In  education, 
collectivism  pays  very  little  attention  to  the 
private  property  question,  or  to  the  question 
of  public  ownership  of  the  tools  and  machinery 
of  production.  It  is  seeking  the  collective 
welfare,  but  finds  promotion  of  that  welfare 
consistent  with  all  existing  forms  of  private 
property  and  private  industrialism.  In  pro- 
moting the  collective  interest  it  finds  no  diffi- 
culty in  promoting  simultaneously  the  bodily 
and  mental  welfare  of  the  individual.     It  does 


82  IN  EDUCATION 

not  enter  into  educational  controversies,  such 
as  the  controversy  about  utilitarian  and  cult- 
ural studies,  or  about  a  one-sided  and  an 
every-sided  education.  It  v^ants  results.  It 
demands  that  experts  be  trained  for  its  use; 
but  does  not  undertake  to  settle  the  question 
v^hether  the  expert  it  wants  may  best  be 
trained  by  an  almost  exclusive  devotion  to  the 
study  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics  up 
to  twenty-one  years  of  age,  or  by  a  more  com- 
prehensive scheme  of  instruction  which  ad- 
mits the  new  sciences,  with  economics,  history, 
and  philosophy,  and  even  permits  the  youth 
to  choose  among  numerous  available  studies 
those  in  which  he  can  best  succeed.  It  de- 
mands that  every  kind  of  education  shall  pro- 
duce useful  men,  filled  with  the  spirit  of  ser- 
viceableness.  Collectivism  probably  believes, 
with  Dr.  Arnold,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  youth 
to  study  those  matters  in  which  afterward  it  is 
to  be  their  duty  to  act;  but  it  is  not  at  pains 
to  determine  at  what  time  of  life  this  dictum 
is  first  to  take  effect.  Moreover,  the  spirit  of 
collectivism  in  its  dealings  with  individualism 


BUSINESS  CAPACITY  INCREASES  83 

IS  altogether  constructive,  having  in  it  no  de- 
structive element,  and  having  no  belief  that 
any  destruction  must  precede  construction. 
Indeed,  in  education — which  is  a  slow  process 
— the  attention  of  reformers  is  always  con- 
centrated upon  modification,  amelioration,  or 
transformation,  and  they  are  quite  sure  that 
these  changes  require  for  complete  fulfilment 
not  days  or  years,  but  generations. 

The  great  and  manifest  increase  in  admin- 
istrative capacity  of  all  sorts  within  the  past 
fifty  years,  and  particularly  within  the  last 
twenty  years,  is  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  broad 
extension  and  wiser  direction  of  public  edu- 
cation. In  all  industries  and  in  all  govern- 
ment administration,  national,  state,  and 
municipal,  the  unit  of  operation  has  been  en- 
larged, the  scale  of  operation  has  increased, 
and  facilities  for  rapid  work  have  been  pro- 
vided— hence  a  greater  demand  on  the  ad- 
ministrative and  inventive  faculties  of  every 
manager.  The  demand  made  on  the  think- 
ing powers  of  the  industrial  and  governmental 
administrator  to-day  is  much  more  serious 


84  IN  EDUCATION 

than  it  was  in  the  active  days  of  the  preceding 
generation  of  business  men  or  public  servants. 
All  over  the  United  States  men  not  yet  forty 
years  old,  men  not  yet  twenty  years  out  of  the 
technical  schools  and  the  colleges,  are  ex- 
hibiting remarkable  capacity  for  the  conduct 
of  large  affairs;  and  young  experts  appear 
with  trained  powers  in  great  variety  competent 
to  comprehend  and  conduct  the  new  processes 
and  vast  organizations  of  recent  industrial- 
ism and  public  business.  Public  education 
and  the  cultivation  in  selected  individuals  of 
the  power  to  imagine,  invent,  and  co-ordinate 
have  kept  pace  with  the  amazing  material  de- 
velopment of  the  nineteenth  century.  Amer- 
ican progress  in  architecture,  music,  and  the 
other  fine  arts,  including  the  drama,  illus- 
trates a  similar  increase  of  efficiency  in  imag- 
ining, inventing,  discriminating,  and  general- 
izing. The  advance  made  in  industrial  and 
social  legislation  is  another  illustration  of  the 
increased  capacity  to  observe  correctly,  ac- 
cumulate masses  of  fact,  and  deduce  a  wise 
generalization  from  such  material.     Not  only 


THE  MASSES  THINK  85 

is  the  number  of  persons  capable  of  sound 
mental  processes  greatly  increased,  but  men 
and  women  by  the  million  have  learned  to 
understand  the  processes  of  the  strong  think- 
ers, and  to  welcome  their  results  with  a  con- 
tagious enthusiasm.  The  expectation  now 
common  that  the  masses  should  think  is  a 
great  tribute  to  the  prompt  effectiveness  of 
popular  education. 


Ill 

IN  GOVERNMENT 

The  novelty  of  most  of  the  functions  of 
government  since  1850  is  very  remarkable. 
This  newness  appears  in  many  ways — first, 
many  of  the  functions  of  government,  national 
state,  and  municipal,  are  new,  and  secondly, 
all  these  new  functions  and  the  few  surviv- 
ing old  ones  are  performed  in  new  ways,  that 
is,  with  new  instruments  or  machinery,  and 
under  novel  conditions.  This  novelty  is  most 
striking  in  municipal  government.  Many 
persons  are  still  living  who  remember  Boston 
when  it  had  no  sewers,  no  public  water-supply, 
no  gas,  no  electricity,  no  street  railways,  and 
no  smooth  pavements;  Albany,  when  pigs 
roamed  the  streets,  the  only  scavengers;  Bal- 
timore, when  each  householder  emptied  the 
refuse  from  his  house  into  the  gutter  in  front 


NOVELTY  OF  GOVERNMENT  WORK        87 

of  his  door,  and  the  streets  were  cleaned  only 
by  animal  scavengers  and  occasional  rains. 
Seventy  years  ago  Massachusetts,  as  a  state, 
provided  no  hospitals  for  its  sick,  wounded,  or 
insane;  issued  no  acts  of  incorporation  with 
limited  liability,  built  no  docks,  improved  no 
harbors,  regulated  neither  steam  noi;  electric 
railroads,  exercised  no  control  over  the  issue 
of  shares  or  bonds  of  incorporated  companies, 
built  no  highways,  and  appointed  no  com- 
missions to  construct  systems  of  sewerage, 
water-supplies,  or  parks — in  short,  performed 
none  of  the  functions  which  to-day  engage 
most  of  the  attention  of  its  legislature  and  its 
officials.  In  like  manner,  many  of  the  most 
interesting  and  important  functions  of  the 
national  government  at  the  present  day  are 
new  within  a  single  generation.  Thus,  the 
attempt  of  the  national  government  to  regu- 
late interstate  commerce  is  novel  action.  The 
contributions  of  the  government  to  education 
through  the  land-grant  colleges  and  the  ex- 
periment stations  for  agriculture  and  horticult- 
ure, and  to  the  progress  of  science  through  its 


88  IN  GOVERNMENT 

museums,  laboratories,  and  exploring  expedi- 
tions, the  maintenance  of  national  forests  and 
parks,  the  construction  of  great  public  works 
for  irrigation,  the  improvement  of  rivers  and 
harbors,  the  building  of  the  Panama  Canal, 
the  administration  of  remote  insular  posses- 
sions— all  these  are  functions  of  the  national 
government  nev^  v^ithin  fifty  years — some  of 
them  within  ten  years — and  yet  they  engage 
the  greater  part  of  the  time  and  attention  of 
both  Congress  and  the  Administration.  More- 
over,  all  business  is  now  done  in  ways  of  which 
men  in  active  life  before  1850  had  no  concep- 
tion. Diffused  mechanical  power,  telegraphs, 
telephones,  stenography,  typewriting,  and 
automobiles  have  made  it  possible  for  every 
director  or  manager  to  accomplish  many  times 
the  amount  of  work  the  same  sort  of  person 
could  have  done  before  1850,  and  have  greatly 
increased  the  product  of  every  clerk,  salesman, 
mechanic,  craftsman,  farm-hand,  or  laborer. 
Government  now  touches  many  of  the  most 
fundamental  interests  of  the  individual  citizen, 
affecting  favorably  or  unfavorably  his  prop- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  MORE  DEPENDENT     89 

erty,  his  earning  capacity,  his  mode  of  life, 
and  his  family  concerns. 

Meanwhile,  the  individual  citizen  has  be- 
come much  less  independent  than  he  was 
before  1850.  For  example,  thirty  years  ago 
the  people  on  Mt.  Desert  Island,  Maine, 
enjoyed  an  extraordinarily  independent  life. 
They  got  their  food  from  the  sea,  and  from 
their  own  farms  and  gardens  on  the  shore, 
and  their  fuel  from  their  own  wood-lots. 
They  raised  their  own  sheep,  spun  their  own 
yarn,  and  wove  their  own  cloth,  except  that 
they  had  recently  acquired  the  habit  of  buy- 
ing cotton  warps  which  they  filled  with  wool. 
They  built  their  own  vessels  from  the  island 
timber,  and  were  masters  of  their  own  carry- 
ing trade.  They  exported  salt  fish,  lumber, 
and  granite,  products  of  their  own  labor,  and 
imported  very  little  except  sugar,  tea,  and 
coffee,  cotton  goods,  metal  tools,  and  crockery. 
A  Mt.  Desert  householder  in  those  days  was 
an  extraordinarily  independent  and  self-con- 
tained individual,  who  was  touched  by  col- 
lective action  only  at  the  annual  town  meet- 


90  IN  GOVERNMENT 

ing,  in  the  proceedings  of  which  he  took  an 
active  part.  He  personally  owned  all  the 
instruments  of  production  he  needed;  and  if 
he  went  fishing  in  a  vessel  larger  than  he  and 
his  boy  could  manage,  he  went  on  shares  in 
an  equitable  co-operative  fashion.  The  situa- 
tion of  the  Mt.  Desert  householder  to-day 
is  utterly  changed.  He  now  imports  almost 
everything  he  eats,  drinks,  or  wears,  and  al- 
most all  the  material  with  which  his  shelters 
are  built.  He  has  become  dependent  on 
other  people  and  their  industries  for  the  nec- 
essaries of  life — as  much  so  as  the  inhabi- 
tants of  a  closely  built  city.  He  must  do  just 
what  city  people  have  to  do — sell  his  labor, 
skill,  judgment,  or  experience,  for  money 
with  which  to  buy  the  necessaries  of  life.  He 
perhaps  has  more  health,  comfort,  and  en- 
joyment of  life  than  he  used  to  have;  but  he 
is  no  longer  an  apt  illustration  of  extreme  in- 
dividualism, and  has  become  subject  to  col- 
lectivism. 

With  this  great  change  in  the  degree  of  in- 
dividual independence  has  gone  an  equally 


LOCAL  INTERESTS  EXPANDED  91 

great  change  in  what  used  to  be  designated 
as  "local  interests."  When  provisions  and 
building  materials  came  from  within  carting 
distance,  or  were  water-borne  from  places 
near  by,  when  many  a  town  had  a  common 
for  the  grazing  of  cows,  and  each  town  had 
Its  own  slaughter-house,  each  family  its  own 
cesspool — if  it  did  not  run  its  sewage  onto  the 
grassy  slope  below  the  kitchen  sink — and  each 
family  or  group  of  families  its  own  pump,  the 
phrase  "local  interests"  had  a  somewhat 
definite  meaning.  Each  householder  was  in- 
terested in  the  highway  that  brought  him  his 
provisions  from  the  next  town  or  from  the 
wharf,  in  the  sidewalk  over  which  his  children 
walked  to  school  and  his  whole  family  to 
church,  and  in  the  fire-engine,  drawn  by  man- 
power, which  might  possibly  arrive  at  his 
house  in  time,  if  the  snow  or  the  mud  were  not 
too  deep.  Not  a  single  one  of  these  local  in- 
terests survives  in  anything  like  its  former 
force,  except  perhaps  the  interest  in  a  small 
portion  of  some  sidewalk;  and  the  sidewalks 
stretch  away  in  every  direction  for  many  miles. 


92  IN  GOVERNMENT 

The  provisions  or  the  building  materials  come 
from  hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles  away. 
Even  country  highways  must  be  very  differ- 
ently constructed  from  those  of  the  old  time; 
for  they  have  to  resist  many  novel  kinds  of 
wear  and  tear.  Urban  sidewalks  are  thronged 
every  day  with  thousands  of  people  who  do 
not  live  in  the  city,  and  contribute  little 
or  nothing  to  its  financial  support.  Every 
dwelling  used  to  have  its  own  water,  light, 
and  air  at  the  discretion  of  its  owner;  now 
all  these  elemental  provisions  are  prescribed 
by  government,  and  ought  to  be  much  more 
strictly  regulated  than  they  are.  The  old- 
fashioned  local  interests  exist  no  longer. 
They  have  broadened  out  to  such  an  extent 
that  many  of  them  need  the  care  of  the  na- 
tional government,  and  many  more  the  care 
'of  the  state.  Those  that  remain  to  the  town 
or  city,  that  Is,  to  the  local  government,  have 
become  so  complex,  and  demand  so  much 
knowledge  and  skill,  that  they  need  the  con- 
stant attention  of  highly  trained  men,  who 
deserve  the  name  of  expert.     It  is  plain  that 


NEW  FUNCTIONS  OF  GOVERNMENT       93 

collectivism   has  gained    enormously  on  in-  ^ 
dividualism  in  every  sphere  of  governmental   . 
action.     It  is  plain  that  the  individual  citizen's 
power  to  determine  his  own  mode  of  life  and 
that  of  his  family  has  been  greatly  abridged 
since  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 

The  new  functions  of  the  national  govern- 
ment touch  the  industries  of  the  country  and 
the  occupations  of  its  citizens  at  innumerable 
points,  and  these  points  of  contact  are  all  the 
time  increasing  in  number.  The  heavy  taxes 
levied  by  the  government  through  the  tariff 
and  the  internal  revenue  imposts  affect  very 
strongly  every  consumer  in  the  country. 
Through  the  government's  regulation  of  na- 
tional banks  the  whole  industrial  finance  of 
the  country  is  affected.  Through  its  regula- 
tion of  railroads  and  of  vessels  on  the  oceans, 
lakes,  and  rivers,  all  the  conditions  of  trans- 
portation throughout  the  entire  country,  for 
both  passengers  and  freight,  have  been  and 
are  still  to  be  profoundly  modified.  The 
markets  of  the  country  all  watch  for  govern- 
ment reports  on  the  condition  of  the  crops, 


94  IN  GOVERNMENT 

and  on  the  outgoing  movement  of  grains  and 
provisions  from  the  various  ports.  The  agri- 
cultural statistics  issued  by  the  government 
have  no  little  to  do  with  the  determination  of 
prices.  The  quality  of  foods  and  drugs  must 
conform  to  government  regulations.  Ship- 
pers of  all  sorts  of  goods,  not  content  with  the 
regulation  by  government  of  railroad  trans- 
portation, call  on  the  government  to  spend 
hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars,  raised  by  gen- 
eral taxation,  to  secure  the  competition  of 
costly  waterways  with  the  railroads  and  the 
improved  highways.  To  the  national  courts 
the  people  look  for  the  means  of  controlling 
monopolies,  and  putting  just  limits  to  the 
power  of  labor  trusts,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
associations  of  employers  on  the  other.  Final- 
ly, when  some  pestilence  originating  In  an- 
other country  threatens  to  invade  the  United 
States,  It  is  the  national  government  which 
must  protect  the  ports,  attack  the  Invader 
wherever  It  gets  a  footing,  and  in  so  doing 
override  both  state  rights  and  Individual 
rights. 


COLLECTIVISM  IN  THE  STATES  95 

Accompanying  the  development  of  collec- 
tive action  through  the  new  functions  and 
new^  methods  of  the  national  government  is  a 
corresponding  development  through  the  state 
governments.  Most  of  the  present  objects 
and  methods  of  social  and  industrial  activity 
being  new  since  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  adopted,  these  novelties  have  per- 
force been  dealt  with  in  the  first  instance  by 
the  states,  because  the  national  government 
possesses  only  the  powers  specifically  con- 
ferred upon  it  by  the  written  Constitution. 
Accordingly,  it  has  been  the  states  that  have 
given  charters  to  corporations  with  limited 
liability,  to  towns  and  cities,  and  to  educa- 
tional and  charitable  institutions,  and  have 
appointed  commissions  or  commissioners  to 
supervise  transportation  companies,  gas  and 
electric  light  companies,  insurance  companies, 
fraternal  and  mutual-benefit  organizations, 
and  co-operative  building  and  banking  socie- 
ties. It  is  the  states  that  have  undertaken  to 
control  the  issue  of  the  stocks  and  bonds  of 
public  utility  companies,  and  to  standardize 


96  IN  GOVERNMENT 

the  accounts  of  such  companies.  It  is  the 
states  that  license  pharmacists,  steam  engi- 
neers, plumbers,  and  chauffeurs.  It  is  the 
states  that  regulate  the  transportation  and 
sale  of  live  stock,  animal  products,  vegetables, 
fruit,  and  milk.  Finally,  it  is  the  states  that 
procure  and  publish  all  vital  statistics,  and 
undertake  to  control  the  ordinary  contagious 
diseases  and  the  occasional  epidemics.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  say  that  all  these  new  powers 
of  the  states  are  collective  powers  exercised  in 
the  interest  of  the  community  as  a  whole,  and 
that  they  are  all  liable  at  any  moment  to  re- 
strict closely  the  liberty  of  the  individual, 
and,  in  fact,  do  habitually  restrict  that  liberty 
in  important  respects.  The  Massachusetts, 
New  York,  or  Pennsylvania  farmer,  mechanic, 
or  householder  of  1825,  ^^^  ^^  revisit  his  state 
in  1900,  would  be  amazed  and  horrified  by 
the  innumerable  restrictions  which  had  been 
imposed  by  collectivism  on  his  familiar 
methods  of  work  and  his  mode  of  life,  on  his 
sales  and  his  purchases,  on  his  dealings  with 
his  children  in  sickness  and  in  health,  and  on 


COLLECTIVE  ACTION  IN  CITIES  97 

his  use  and  abuse  of  domestic  animals,  drugs, 
and  liquors.  Above  all,  he  would  be  aston- 
ished at  the  increase  of  taxes,  and  at  the  small 
proportion  of  the  tax-money  raised  that  was 
applied  in  1900  to  the  objects  of  public  ex- 
penditure famihar  to  him,  such  as  roads  and 
bridges,  schools,  and  the  care  of  paupers.  He 
would  think  that  the  freedom  he  so  highly 
valued  had  been  very  much  abridged  for  his 
successors. 

When  we  compare  the  work  of  city  govern- 
ments to-day  with  that  done  by  city  govern- 
ments a  hundred  years  ago,  or  even  sixty 
years  ago,  we  perceive  at  once  that  the  objects 
and  nature  of  the  work  have  changed,  and  be- 
come both  more  extensive  and  more  compli- 
cated. We  see,  too,  that  there  is  nothing  po- 
litical or  legislative  about  it;  that  the  state 
legislatures  through  the  exercise  of  the 
charter-giving  right  have  reduced  city  gov- 
ernments to  purely  administrative  functions. 
A  city  government  nowadays  has  merely  a 
large  business  to  conduct;  but  a  peculiar 
business  because  no  profit  is  to  be  made  in  it. 


98  IN  GOVERNMENT 

All  city  administration  is  collective  work,  to 
be  well  done  in  the  interest  of  the  community 
— but  with  the  expectation  that  the  indi- 
vidual's interest,  though  subordinate  to  that 
of  the  community,  will  at  the  same  time  be 
promoted.  The  collective  force  exercised  by 
city  governments  in  these  days  is  really  very 
remarkable,  and  it  exhibits  a  strong  tendency 
to  increase  the  amount  of  its  pressure  and  the 
number  of  points  at  which  that  pressure  is 
applied.  The  capacity  to  do  well  city  busi- 
ness is  not  to  be  expected  of  the  ordinary 
citizen.  Even  small-town  business  is  getting 
beyond  the  personal  capacity  of  many  of  the 
citizens,  because  so  much  expert  knowledge 
of  engineering,  medicine,  and  education  is 
needed  for  the  successful  administration  of 
a  twentieth-century  town.  In  the  adminis- 
tration of  a  large  city  it  is  impossible  to  pro- 
cure efficiency,  unless  all  its  departments  are 
directed  by  experts.  Appointments  in  reward 
of  political  service  and  the  employment  of  in- 
competent or  unfaithful  men  have  become 
not  only  wrong  and  unjust,  but  silly  and 


COLLECTIVE  ACTION  INEVITABLE         99 

absurd.  By  such  appointments  the  public 
purse  is  robbed,  the  public  welfare  is  endan- 
gered, and  the  innumerable  interferences  of 
collective  action  with  individual  liberty  do  not 
yield  their  proper  fruit — the  incidental  pro- 
motion of  individual  welfare. 

Let  us  next  consider  the  inevitableness 
of  this  predominance  of  collectivism  over  in- 
dividualism. The  necessity  of  collective 
measures  and  the  impotency  of  individual- 
istic methods  are  vividly  exhibited  wherever 
population  concentrates  itself  in  large  cities 
or  in  closely  built  towns  about  mines  or 
factories,  just  as  they  did  in  the  walled  towns 
and  villages  of  mediaeval  Europe.  An  agri- 
cultural population,  scattered  loosely  over  con- 
siderable areas,  or  a  nomad  people  wander- 
ing in  search  of  pastures  for  their  animals, 
may  continue  to  exist  without  much  attention 
to  the  interest  of  the  group  in  comparison 
with  the  interest  of  the  single  family;  but 
when  thousands  of  men,  women,  and  children 
are  crowded  into  small  areas  with  only  a  few 
cubic  feet  of  space  for  each  individual,  close 


lOO  IN  GOVERNMENT 

attention  to  the  collective  welfare  is  the  only 
way  to  make  the  individual  reasonably  safe; 
and  this  principle  applies  not  only  to  physical, 
or  bodily,  welfare,  but  also  to  moral  welfare. 
Concentration  of  population  is  therefore  re- 
sponsible in  large  measure  for  the  rapid  gain 
of  collectivism  on  individualism.  The  meas- 
ures taken  during  the  past  fifty  years  to  pro- 
mote and  make  secure  the  public  health  have 
been  forced  on  government  as  a  consequence 
of  concentration  of  population.  Most  of 
these  measures  interfere  strongly  with  indi- 
vidual rights  and  responsibilities,  and  many 
of  them  control  the  habits  and  modes  of  life 
both  of  individuals  and  of  families,  thus 
abridging  in  many  ways  personal  liberty.  A 
public  water-supply  leads  to  the  construc- 
tion of  sewers,  and  makes  possible  the  intro- 
duction of  plumbing  into  all  sorts  of  dwellings. 
The  plumbing  must  be  connected  with  the 
sewers,  and  immediately  many  inventions 
must  be  made,  and  much  skilled  labor  applied, 
in  order  to  prevent  the  introduction  of  the 
contents  of  the  sewers,  whether  gaseous  or 


PROTECTION  OF  PUBLIC* 'H^AtTH       loi 


liquid,  into  houses.  There  follows  the  in- 
spection of  privately  owned  plumbing  by 
public  officials,  and  the  licensing  of  plumbers 
by  public  authority.  The  private  owner,  the 
tenant,  the  shopkeeper,  and  the  manufact- 
uring company  all  submit  to  public  regula- 
tion, in  order  to  avoid  wide-spread  injury  to 
the  public  health  or,  in  other  words,  to  the 
health  of  numerous  individuals.  The  public 
inspection  of  provisions  from  the  moment 
of  their  production,  through  the  period  of 
distribution,  to  the  moment  of  consumption, 
is  another  collective  measure  forced  upon 
society  by  the  concentration  of  population. 
The  factory  system  with  its  smoke  and  foul 
air,  rapid  transit  with  its  noise  and  hurry, 
and  the  quick  despatch  of  business  with  its 
nervous  strain  work  their  injurious  effects  on 
the  public  health  wherever  population  is  con- 
centrated, and  nothing  can  offset  these  effects 
except  collective  measures  to  secure  a  toler- 
able supply  of  light  and  air,  reasonable  hours 
of  labor,  wholesome  food,  and  the  means  and 
opportunities  of  recreation.     It  is  quite  impos- 


,    ,  ,    I102  IN  GOVERNMENT 

sible  for  the  individual  alone  to  protect  him- 
self and  his  family  from  serious  bodily  injur- 
ies; even  the  richest  man  cannot  make  himself 
\  or  his  family  safe,  unless  the  collective  judg- 
ment and  energy  are  put  forth  to  protect  him. 
^Creyemive_jiLedid.ae..admjr  illustrates 

the  intense,jdeslrahleness  of  collecti.Ye,.actiaD 
in  the  interest  both  of  the  mass  and  of  the 
individual,  and  the  new  efficacy  and  benefi- 
cence of  such  action  because  of  the  recent 
progress  of  applied  science.  Mankind  has 
learnt  that  by  vigorous  collective  action  it  is 
possible  to  prevent  the  ravages  of  many  epi- 
demic diseases,  in  the  presence  of  w^hich  man- 
kind used  to  be  absolutely  helpless.  For 
example,  the  German  Empire  requires  the 
vaccination  of  every  child  three  times  at  dif- 
ferent ages.  Under  this  law  every  recruit  for 
the  German  army  is  vaccinated  just  before 
he  enters  the  service.  Since  1884,  when  this 
law  went  into  effect,  not  a  single  soldier  in  the 
German  army  has  died  of  small-pox.  It  was 
Jenner's  discovery,  worked  out  and  improved 
upon  by  several  generations  of  biologists  and 


\/ 


CONTAGION  AND   INDIVIDUALISM       103 

physicians,  which  made  possible  this  preven- 
tive action  against  small-pox.  The  law  and 
the  practice  under  it  do  not  admit  the  right  of 
parents  to  determine  whether  their  children 
shall  be  vaccinated  or  not.  The  most  civil- 
ized communities  now  adopt  regulations  con- 
cerning the  treatment  of  diphtheria,  scarlet- 
fever,  measles,  mumps,  and  whooping-cough 
among  school  children.  When  yellow-fever 
appears  in  tropical  or  sub-tropical  cities  in 
Central  and  South  America,  the  public  au- 
thority invades  the  residences  of  the  sufferers 
with  mosquito  netting  and  other  appliances 
just  as  promptly  and  as  forcibly  as  the  fire 
department  invades  a  building  on  fire.  In 
all  these  cases  collective  action  overrides  the 
individual  right;  but  it  does  so  to  protect  from-^*' 
threatened  injury  the  mass  of  the  population. 
If  the  preventive  measures  are  successful,  they 
confer  an  immense  benefit,  industrial,  com- 
mercial, and  social,  on  the  community  as  a 
whole,  while  they  do  no  harm  to  the  indi- 
viduals who  are  suffering  from  disease.  The 
government  inspection  of  j)assengers  arriving 


I04  IN  GOVERNMENT 

in  this  country  to  prevent  the  importation  of 
diseases  is  another  good  illustration  of  the 
inevitableness  of  collective  action  if  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  to  be  effectively  pro- 
tected from  infection — and  the  larger  the 
agency  of  collective  action,  the  better.  A 
national  quarantine  is  better  than  that  of  a 
state,  and  a  state  quarantine  is  better  than 
that  of  a  city  or  town.  Individualism  and 
competition  could  not  have  given  mankind 
the  great  safeguards  against  disease  which 
collectivism,  informed  by  preventive  medicine, 
has  provided;  but  collectivism  means  in  this 
connection  law  executed  by  government  ad- 
ministration. Without  this  sort  of  collective 
action  the  concentration  of  population  which 
has  taken  place  during  the  last  hundred 
years  could  not  have  been  safely  effected. 
Its  evils  would  have  become  intolerable. 

The  progress  of  applied  science  has  made 
possible  much  other  protective  action  on  the 
part  of  government  in  the  interest  of  the  mass, 
action  which,  though  not  needed  by  a  sparse 
agricultural  population,  became  indispensable 


THE  LOCAL  GOVERNMENT   UNIT         105 

to  a  dense  manufacturing  population.  Thus, 
the  regulation  of  the  preparation  and  sale  of 
animal  products  used  for  food,  of  milk  and 
other  dairy  products,  and  of  drugs  and  alco- 
holic beverages  has  been  literally  forced  on 
the  community  by  its  new  collective  needs. 
It  often  happens  in  these  days  that  some  of 
the  most  urgent  needs  of  dense  populations 
cannot  possibly  be  supplied  by  individual 
action  or  by  "local  government,"  as,  for  in- 
stance, water  supplies  and  sewer  systems. 
Boston  and  its  vicinity  afford  a  good  case  in 
point.  Within  twelve  miles  of  Beacon  Hill 
— Boston's  summit — are  more  than  thirty 
separate  towns  and  cities,  each  with  its  own 
government  and  its  own  area.  Through  this 
densely  populated  district  of  irregular  surface 
three  small  rivers  flowed  into  tidal  inlets  and 
thence  into  Boston  Harbor.  The  rivers  and 
the  inlets  received  not  only  the  surface  drain- 
age, but  the  sewage  of  a  large  population  and 
the  wastes  of  many  factories,  and  poured  the 
foul  mixture  into  the  bays  and  onto  the  flats 
of  Boston  Harbor.     When  this  evil  became 


io6  IN  GOVERNMENT 

intolerable  and  a  remedy  was  sought,  it  ap- 
peared that  Boston  within  its  actual  territorial 
limits  and  through  its  local  government  was 
quite  unable,  in  spite  of  its  central  position 
and  its  wealth,  to  protect  itself  against  the 
sewage  evil  on  the  one  hand,  or  to  provide 
itself  with  an  adequate  supply  of  pure  water, 
on  the  other.  The  state  was  obliged  to  in- 
tervene; and  through  commissions  appointed 
by  the  governor  it  constructed  admirable 
public  works  which  provided  for  the  safe  dis- 
position of  the  sewage  of  Boston  and  many 
other  municipalities,  and  for  an  adequate 
water  supply  for  a  similar  group  of  towns  and 
cities.  Thus  state  collectivism  successfully 
accomplished  what  collectivism  on  the  "local" 
scale  could  not  do  for  the  public  welfare.  In 
the  same  district  the  organization  of  a  com- 
petent poHce  force  and  an  effective  fire  de- 
partment, both  properly  unified,  awaits  a 
like  intervention  of  state  collectivism. 
/  The  development  of  what  is  called  "big 
business"  within  the  last  twenty  years  has 
also  made  necessary  a  great  deal  of  collective 


BIG  BUSINESS  NEEDS  CONTROL         107 

action  on  the  part  of  government,  partly 
directed  to  preserve  or  protect  individual 
rights,  and  partly  to  control  great  combina- 
tions of  capital  on  the  one  hand  and  of  labor 
on  the  other.  The  consolidation  of  railroads 
and  steamship  lines,  the  concentration  in  the 
hands  of  one  corporation  or  trust  of  mines, 
means  of  transportation,  and  metallurgical 
works  all  directed  to  the  production  of  a  single 
metal  in  various  forms,  the  combination  of 
many  factories  in  the  same  industry,  once 
scattered  in  different  parts  of  the  country  and 
managed  by  different  persons  or  corporations, 
but  now  brought  together  under  one  manage- 
ment, and  the  agglomeration  of  banking  cap- 
ital in  few  hands,  have  been  natural  devel- 
opments which  tend  to  promote  efficiency, 
economy  of  effort,  and  stability  of  prices;  but 
since  they  also  tend  strongly  to  monopoly, 
they  have  compelled  the  interference  in  their 
affairs  of  government,  national,  state,  and 
municipal,  and  of  all  three  departments  of 
governmental  action,  the  legislative,  the  judi- 
cial, and  the  executive. 


lo8  IN  GOVERNMENT 

"Big  business"  may  be  big  for  any  one  of 
several  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  the  busi- 
ness may  cover  a  great  area,  v^hich  far  tran- 
scends both  municipal  and  state  boundaries; 
secondly,  it  may  involve  the  use  of  a  very 
large  amount  of  capital,  either  fixed  or  quick, 
or  both,  and  this  capital  may  be  practically 
within  the  control  of  a  small  number  of  per- 
sons; thirdly,  the  business  may  be  large  in  the 
sense  that  it  employs  and  supports  many 
thousands  of  workmen  with  their  families; 
and  fourthly,  it  may  be  large  in  any  one  of  the 
preceding  senses  and  in  one  other,  namely, 
that  it  is  a  source  of  private  profit  for  a  large 
number  of  persons,  the  shareholders,  or  the 
members  of  a  mutual  or  co-operative  society. 
For  whichever  of  these  reasons  a  given  busi- 
ness is  large,  the  manner  in  which  it  is  con- 
ducted is  something  in  which  the  whole  com- 
munity has  a  direct  and  keen  interest.  It  is 
not  safe  to  leave  any  large  business  to  be  con- 
ducted in  private  by  individualism  uncon- 
trolled; it  must  be  inspected  and  regulated 
in  the  interest  of  society  at  large.     Collectiv- 


GOVERNMENT  INSPECTION  109 

ism  must  protect  the  interests  of  society;  or, 
m  other  words,  government,  national,  state, 
or  municipal — whichever  branch  has  range 
and  power  enough — must  effectively  super- 
vise every  business  which  is  large  in  any  of 
the  above  senses,  under  laws  wisely  framed 
to  secure,  so  far  as  legislation  can,  adequate 
knowledge  of  the  business  on  the  part  of 
government,  proper  conditions  of  labor,  and 
a  continuous  profit  for  the  capital  invested. 
Such  publicity  and  such  competent  govern- 
mental inspection  are  as  much  for  the  interest 
of  the  large  businesses  themselves  as  they  are 
for  the  public  interest,  particularly  in  those 
great  industries  which  produce  necessaries  of 
life,  raw  materials  needed  in  many  other  in- 
dustries, or  tools  or  instruments  used  by  mill- 
ions of  workmen.  Now  that  so  much  of  the 
buying  and  selling  is  done  in  public,  it  is  easy 
to  overestimate  the  advantages  of  privacy  in 
any  business  not  founded  on  a  secret  process. 
The  great  consolidations  of  business  in  the 
last  twenty  years  have  suggested  to  many 
minds  the  idea  that  they  are  preparing  the 


no  IN  GOVERNMENT 

way  for  government  ownership  of  the  means  of 
transportation  and  of  production  in  factories 
and  mines.  It  is  a  natural  idea  that  the  In- 
terest of  the  community  as  a  whole  would  be 
promoted  by  carrying  on  all  such  Industries 
without  making  any  profit  on  them;  that  is, 
by  carrying  them  on  just  as  the  government 
carries  on  the  post-office,  at  cost,  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  entire  community;  but  it  is  by  no 
means  clear  that  the  abolition  of  corporation 
ownership  for  such  purposes,  and  the  transfer 
to  the  government  of  all  the  industries  now 
managed  by  great  corporations,  would  result 
in  a  residual  benefit  to  the  people  at  large. 
Good  corporation  management  by  directors 
who  recognize  the  fact  that  they  are  trustees 
for  their  stockholders  has  many  advantages 
over  government  management.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  workmen  by  the  million,  it  is 
well  to  have  many  different  employers — the 
corporations  and  the  strong  partnerships — 
competing  with  each  other  for  good  service, 
rather  than  a  single  employer,  the  govern- 
ment.    Again,  the  motive  of  private  profit. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  iii 

which  IS  powerful  in  all  corporations,  is  an 
effective  motive  toward  efficiency;  but  it  is  a 
motive  which  cannot  be  kept  in  play  in  gov- 
ernment service.  Furthermore,  the  very  val- 
uable class  of  men  capable  of  directing  large 
affairs  is  better  off  with  a  multitude  of  dis- 
tinct corporations  carrying  on  different  in- 
dustries, and  competing  with  each  other  for 
efficient  managers,  than  they  would  be  if 
there  were  but  one  great  employer  of  directing 
or  managing  men,  the  government.  Lastly, 
experience  shows  that  corporation  service  pro- 
vides a  surer  promotion  and  a  longer  tenure 
for  capable  men  than  government  service 
does  in  this  country.  This  is  a  result,  of 
course,  of  the  intelligent  seeking  of  private 
profit  by  a  corporation.  Under  the  ordinary 
conditions  of  corporation  service  the  proved 
expert  is  always  retained,  unless  some  dis- 
aster befall  the  business. 

Governmental  methods  in  the  United 
States  have  generally  lacked  continuity,  econ- 
omy, inventiveness,  and  efficiency,  and  in  all 
these  respects  have  been  distinctly  inferior  to 


112  IN  GOVERNMENT 

the  methods  which  have  prevailed  in  vigorous 
and  successful  corporations.  The  heads  of 
all  the  administrative  services  change  fre- 
quently in  practice;  and  -under  the  "spoils 
system  there  has  been  no  continuky-ifl  even 
the  humblest  levels  of  the  government  serYici^. 
Although  the  civil  service  of  the  United  States 
has  been  improved  by  the  introduction  of  a 
merit  system  for  original  appointment  to  the 
low  grades,  it  still  lacks  a  merit  system  of 
promotion,  since  all  the  higher  offices  are 
filled  by  the  spoils  or  patronage  method. 
Even  if  the  patronage  method  of  appointment 
and  promotion  should  be  completely  elimini- 
ated  from  government  service,  national,  state, 
and  municipal,  all  persons  employed  by  the 
government,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest, 
would  still  lack  the  powerful  motive  of  private 
profit  as  an  inducement  to  fidelity  and  zeal. 
Under  a  democratic  government  the  frequent 
shifting  of  the  principal  administrators  is  one 
of  the  securities  for  freedom,  and  at  present 
there  is  no  sign  in  any  free  nation  of  a  change 
in  this  fundamental  policy.     In  the  United 


THE  MERIT  SYSTEM  ESSENTIAL         113 

States,  cities  and  towns,  states,  and  the  na- 
tional government  itself,  all  illustrate  this 
frequent  change  of  the  directing  heads.  So 
long  as  this  is  the  case,  there  will  be  a  great 
field  in  every  free  country  for  the  corporate 
management  of  large  industries. 

Until  all  civil  servants  are  appointed  and 
promoted  on  the  merit  system,  there  is  of 
course  no  possibility  of  government  managing 
successfully  any  industry  whatever,  unless  it 
be  a  complete  monopoly  like  the  post-office, 
and  even  then  its  management  will  fall  far 
below  the  standard  of  efficiency  in  many  pri- 
vate corporations.  On  the  whole  it  seems 
likely  that  the  functions  of  a  democratic 
government  will  remain  for  many  years  to 
come  essentially  what  they  have  been,  though 
with  many  improvements  in  detail,  first,  legis- 
lative— making  the  laws;  then,  judicial — in- 
terpreting and  enforcing  the  laws;  and 
thirdly,  administrative — executing  the  laws, 
best  through  long-tenure  agents  selected  and 
promoted  for  merit.  The  corporations,  great 
and  small,  will  continue  to  render  efficient 


114  I^  GOVERNMENT 

service  to  the  community;  but  they  will  be 
regulated  and  controlled  by  public  statutes, 
courts,  and  government  administration  acting 
under  law.  Both  corporation  action  and  gov- 
ernment action  are  collective  in  high  degree. 

largely  since  1850,  and  will  make  further  gains 
in  the  interest  of  the  whole  people;  but  they 
will  not  abolish  personal  liberty  and  individual 
rights,  though  they  will  restrict  and  modify 
them. 

The  conflict  between  individualism  and 
collectivism  is  well  illustrated  by  the  use  of 
the  United  States  post-office  as  a  means  of 
preventing  the  diffusion  of  vicious  knowledge 
and  vicious  practices  through  the  community. 
The  increase  of  postal  facilities  in  both  city 
and  country,  and  the  invention  of  type-writing 
and  of  the  card  catalogue,  having  brought 
about  a  great  increase  of  advertising  through 
the  post-office,  individuals  who  proposed  to 
make  a  livelihood,  or  a  fortune,  out  of  lotteries, 
obscene  books  and  pictures,  quack  medicines, 
gambling  houses,  or  brothels,  were  quick  to 


VICIOUS   USE  OF  THE  MAILS  115 

seize  upon  this  easy  and  private  method  of 
advertising.  They  procured,  sometimes  by 
fair  means  and  sometimes  by  foul,  the  Hsts  of 
addresses  which  universities,  colleges,  acade- 
mies, correspondence  schools,  insurance  com- 
panies, pubHshers,  bankers,  brokers,  jobbers, 
and  all  sorts  of  retail  stores  prepare  and  keep 
up  to  date.  Many  such  lists  can  be  bought — 
as,  for  instance,  the  catalogues  of  schools  and 
colleges,  "Who's  Who,"  the  social  blue-books 
and  city  directories,  and  the  lists  of  learned 
and  scientific  societies — and  many  others  can 
be  procured  by  bribery.  These  address  lists 
serve  good  purposes,  commercial,  educational, 
and  social,  but  all  of  them  can  be  used  for  the 
bad  purposes  of  vicious  or  unscrupulous  in- 
dividuals. The  United  States  post-office,  a 
collective  force,  is  the  indispensable  agent  for 
this  kind  of  advertising.  When  furnished 
with  trustworthy  information,  the  Post-office 
Department  will  prevent  the  vicious  use  of 
the  mails,  and  in  clear  cases  will  furnish  evi- 
dence to  public  or  private  prosecutors  in 
courts.     This  is  an  instance  of  collective  force 


Ii6  IN  GOVERNMENT 

used  against  individual  malefactors  who 
avail  themselves  of  the  means  which  govern- 
ment suppHes  of  communicating  directly  and 
privately  with  any  number  of  scattered  indi- 
viduals. Through  the  post-office  the  lottery 
business  has  been  broken  up  in  the  United 
States,  and  various  other  pernicious  busi- 
nesses have  been  effectively  restricted,  if  not 
suppressed.  Such  action  on  the  part  of  the 
post-office  IS,  however,  in  violation  of  each 
individual's  right  to  have  any  matter  he  may 
put  into  the  mails,  properly  addressed  and 
stamped,  delivered  without  delay  or  scrutiny. 
The  urgent  collective  need  of  protecting  the 
mass  from  corruption  overrides  in  the  public 
interest  a  precious  individual  right. 

Although  the  subject  of  this  lecture  is  col- 
lective action  in  government,  it  is  important 
to  observe,  in  passing,  that  not  all  collective 
action  is  governmental.  In  the  two  earlier 
lectures  we  have  discussed  collectivism  in 
industry  and  in  education,  and  have  found  in 
both  these  fields  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
collective  action  which  proceeds  from  volun- 


VOLUNTARY  ASSOCIATIONS  117 

tary  associations  or  societies,  not  possessing 
any  governmental  power.  To  be  sure,  in 
trades-unions  and  employers'  associations, 
the  collective  action  is  that  of  a  class,  and  not 
of  the  whole  community;  and  in  education 
the  collective  action  of  endowed  private  in- 
stitutions is  much  less  extensive  than  that 
of  government,  though  highly  beneficial.  It 
remains  to  notice  the  collective  action  of  vol- 
untary associations  organized  to  promote  re- 
forms and  sanitary,  social,  or  aesthetic  improve- 
ments. Such  associations  can  of  themselves 
exert  no  force  or  compelling  power.  They 
educate  public  opinion,  and  then  through  the 
action  of  an  informed  public  opinion  procure 
the  enactment  of  new  laws,  behind  which  will 
stand  the  courts  and  the  executive.  In  other 
words,  they  induce  governmental  action,  and 
prepare  the  way  for  it  by  appealing  to  the  in- 
telligence and  moral  sense  of  the  community. 
Even  during  the  initial  educational  stage  they 
often  interfere  with  what  have  been  consid- 
ered the  rights  of  individuals.  Thus,  every 
society  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  ani- 


ii8  IN  GOVERNMENT 

mals  will,  if  it  can,  interfere  with  the  right 
of  an  individual  owner  to  maltreat,  abuse,  or 
neglect  his  horse,  dog,  or  cat;  and  every  soci- 
ety for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  children 
will,  if  need  be,  interferejo  prevent  the  abuse 
or  neglect  of  children  by  vicious  or  incom- 
petent parents — in  spite  of  any  traditional 
theories  about  owners'  rights  over  animals  or 
parental  rights  over  offspring. 

An  excellent  illustration  of  the  collective 
force  exercised  by  voluntary  associations  and 
even  by  occasional  gatherings  of  influential 
people  is  to  be  found  in  the  recent  movement 
in  favor  of  the  conservation  of  nationaL  re- 
sources. Consen^tiQii_relate&  to^jijmera^^ — 
including  the  constituents  of  the  soil — water 
powers,  forests,  lands  either  too  wet  or  too 
dry,  and  the  public  health.  Until  very  re- 
cently the  most  intfj.ligj^t  and  philanthropic 
people  thought  that  the  public^  interest^  v^as^ 
best  promoted  by  the  immediate  exploitation 
of  these  natural  resources  to  any  extent  and 
by  any  available  means.  The  frugal  use  of 
the  great  natural  resources  of  the  country  was 


CONSERVATtbN  NATIONAL  iiy^ 

not  even  thought  of.  Immediate  develop- 
ment by  any  individuals  or  corporations 
possessing  the  necessary  enterprise  and  the 
necessary  money  was  the  thing  desired  and 
advocated.  Suddenly,  far-seeing  men  began 
to  think,  first,  that  most  of  these  natural  re- 
sources were^xhaustible,  and  with  the  present 
methods  of  exploitation  would  be  exhausted 
within  a  measurable  time,  and  secondly,  that 
it  was  undesirable  that  great,  fresh  resources 
should  fall  into^th^Jiaiids^  a jfe^^ 
or  corporations,  to  be  bythem  and  their  chosen 
successors  controlled  for  all  time.  The  vol- 
untary associations  and  the  occasional  gather- 
ings called  to  consider  conservation  measures 
have  already  come  to  the  conclusion  that  ex- 
ploitation, no  matter  how,  is  not  for  the  in- 
terest of  the  nation  at  large,  either  now  or  in 
the  future;  and  inasmuch  as  the  great  natural 
resources  are  not  limited  by  state  boundary 
lines,  they  see  clearly  that  only  the  national 
government  can  protect  the  rights  of  the  whole 
people  against  private  monopoly,  preserve  for 
future  generations  control  over  mines,  water 


I20  IN  GOVERNMENT 

powers,  and  forests,  irrigate  the  dry  lands, 
drain  the  swamps,  and  so  promote  the  health, 
wealth,  and  general  well-being  of  future  gen- 
erations. As  yoty  the  conservation  associa- 
tions and  congresses  use  only  the  powers 
of  persuasion  and  argument;  but  they  also 
persistently  advocate  new  legislation  which 
would  seriously  restrict  the  powers  which  pri- 
vate persons  and  private  corporations  have 
heretofore  been  able  to  procure  and  exercise 
on  the  public  domain.  This  is  clearly  a  case 
in  which  collective  action,  to  be  effective, 
must  be  national  action.  It  is  also  a  popular 
movement  in  which  far-sighted  altruism  dom- 
inates selfish  and  near-sighted  individualism, 
and  the  present  generation  consents  to  take 
account  of  the  probable  needs  and  wishes  of 
future  generations. 

Collectivism  has  in  recent  years  used  freely 
for  its  own  public  purposes  two  ancient  rights 
of  government  which  have  always  been  exer- 
cised against  private  property — the  right  to 
tax,  and  the  right  of  eminent  domain.  The 
right  to  tax  proceeds  upon  the  idea  of  contri- 


TAXATION— EMINENT   DOMAIN  121 

bution,  the  total  contribution  being  appor- 
tioned among  all  property  owners  by  some 
rule  of  universal  application;  but  the  right  of 
eminent  domain  has  no  such  sanction  in  uni- 
versality and  theoretical  equity  among  citizens; 
for  the  state  may  take  one  individual's  property 
for  public  uses  without  simultaneously  taking 
the  property  of  any  other  individual.  The 
justification  of  such  taking  is  wholly  in  the 
public  use.  The  power  to  tax  is  nowadays 
used,  however,  for  many  other  purposes  be- 
sides raising  revenue  by  fairly  distributed  con- 
tributions. It  is  used  to  start  new  industries, 
to  exclude  from  the  national  territory  the 
manufactured  products  of  countries  where 
labor  is  cheaper  than  in  our  own,  to  compel 
owners  of  unoccupied  land  either  to  improve 
it  or  to  sell  it,  to  force  owners  of  forests  to 
destroy  them  periodically  in  order  to  avoid 
ruinous  taxation,  and  to  obtain  for  the  state  a 
large  share  of  all  increases  of  value  in  land 
or  buildings  which  may  be  supposed  to  be 
due  to  a  new  concentration  of  population  or 
to  new  social  customs.     The  power  to  tax  is 


IN  GOVERNMENT 


also  used  to  compel  the  cutting  up  of  large 
landed  estates  at  the  death  of  the  proprietor. 
The  state  may  also  levy  largely  on  estates  in 
process  of  transmission  to  heirs,  on  the  ground 
that  society  as  a  whole  secures  the  right  of 
inheritance  and  may  therefore  rightfully  take 
for  public  use  a  portion  of  every  inherited 
estate,  a  portion  large  in  proportion  to  the 
magnitude  of  the  estate.  The  right  to  tax 
and  the  right  of  eminent  domain  are  both  col- 
lective rights,  which  when  broadly  used  de- 
velop collectivism  at  the  expense  of  individ- 
ualism. It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the 
free  use  of  the  right  to  tax  has  a  strong  ten- 
dency to  make  necessary  the  exercise  of  the 
right  of  eminent  domain.  Thus,  when  in 
outlying  parts  of  a  city  the  owners  of  large 
open  grounds  are  compelled  by  heavy  taxation 
to  cut  up  their  holdings  and  cover  them  with 
dwellings  or  shops,  an  urgent  necessity  arises 
of  somehow  creating  other  open  grounds  con- 
secrated to  public  uses,  and  the  right  of 
eminent  domain  has  to  be  employed  to  pro- 
cure such  grounds.     So  when  in  the  exercise 


EFFECTS  OF  TAXATION  123 

of  individual  rights  the  whole  surface  of  a 
densely  peopled  ward  of  a  great  city  has  been 
covered  with  buildings,  the  right  of  eminent 
domain  has  to  be  exercised  by  the  city  to 
obtain  suitable  school  yards  and  playgrounds 
for  the  children.  The  creation  of  the  parks, 
gardens,  playgrounds,  and  parkways  urgently 
needed  by  most  of  the  American  cities  has 
been  made  possible  by  the  free  exercise  of 
the  right  of  eminent  domain,  and  the  need  of 
these  open  spaces  became  urgent  because  the 
use  made  of  the  power  to  tax  made  it  the  in- 
terest of  the  individual  contributors  to  the 
government  revenue  to  occupy  with  buildings 
as  much  as  possible  of  the  land  they  owned. 
In  the  same  way,  the  tax  laws  of  the  several 
states  being  adverse  to  the  holding  of  forests 
as  private  possessions,  the  interest  of  the 
country  at  large  requires  the  creation  of  forest 
reservations,  to  be  held  by  the  national  gov- 
ernment, the  state  governments,  or  endowed 
institutions  which  are  exempt  from  taxation. 
It  remains  to  consider  two  phenomena  in  the 
sphere  of  government  which  are  highly  collec- 


124  !^  GOVERNMENT 

tive  in  tendency.  The  first  is  the  enormous 
bulk  of  new  legislation  proposed  and  the 
great  number  of  laws  actually  enacted  every 
year  in  the  United  States.  The  second  is  the 
demand  for  uniform  legislation  in  the  several 
States  of  the  Union.  The  multitude  of  new 
enactments  is  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the 
numerous  and  far-reaching  changes  which 
have  occurred  during  the  past  hundred  years 
in  industries,  social  organization,  and  habits 
of  life.  The  rate  of  change  in  all  these  re- 
spects has  been  vastly  more  rapid  since  1810 
than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  civilization. 
Indeed,  it  is  not  exaggeration  to  say  that 
nothing  is  now  done  in  the  civilized  world  as 
it  was  done  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  that 
every  sort  of  social  organization,  including 
family,  school,  church,  courts  of  justice,  and 
governing  agencies,  has  been  profoundly  al- 
tered. The  very  oldest  industries,  such  as 
spinning,  weaving,  and  farming,  have  been 
revolutionized,  and  innumerable  new  indus- 
tries have  been  introduced.  Not  only  has 
educational  discipline  been  changed,  but  the 


EXPECTATION  OF  PROGRESS  125 

objects  In  view  at  school,  college,  university, 
and  technical  school  are  not  the  same  as  they 
were  a  hundred  years  ago.  In  all  human 
occupations  there  Is  now  a  strong  expectation 
of  improvement  and  progress,  and  a  welcome 
is  given  to  new  ideas  and  new  hopes.  How  to 
make  progress  in  innumerable  Industrial  and 
social  directions  has  become  an  object  of  sys- 
tematic study  with  appreciable  numbers  of 
men  and  women.  It  would  be  very  surpris- 
ing if  under  such  conditions  there  had  not  been 
an  eager  demand  for  many  new  laws.  The 
law  of  common  carriers,  which  had  been 
worked  out  during  centuries  for  stage-coaches 
and  turnpikes,  required  many  modifications 
before  it  was  well  adapted  for  railroads;  and 
the  modifying  process  Is  not  yet  completed. 
We  shall  not  find  It  surprising  that  many  laws 
have  had  to  be  passed  concerning  the  powers 
and  privileges  of  corporations.  If  we  consider 
that  the  corporation  with  limited  liability  has 
only  been  In  existence  about  sixty  years,  and 
that  it  has  become  the  most  tremendous  in- 
dustrial agency  of  modern  times.     The  courts 


12.6  IN  GOVERNMENT 

have  had  the  same  experience  as  the  legislat- 
ures, as  the  voluminous  reports  of  the  United 
States  courts  and  the  various  state  courts 
abundantly  testify.  Much  of  the  new  legis- 
lation has  been  crude,  because  hasty;  but  the 
sound  objection  lies,  not  against  new  legisla- 
tion, but  against  hasty  legislation.  The  atten- 
tion of  reformers  ought  to  be  given  to  the  im- 
provement of  the  legislating  bodies,  by  reduc- 
ing the  number  of  legislators,  lengthening 
their  service,  and  shortening  the  ballots  on 
which  they  are  chosen;  so  that  laws  may  be 
better  considered  before  they  are  enacted. 
That  there  should  be  many  new  laws  so  long 
as  society  is  in  such  a  state  of  flux  as  it  has 
been  for  the  last  seventy  years  is  altogether 
desirable.  They  give  evidence  that  the  new 
ideas  and  experiences  of  mankind  and  the 
new  social  and  industrial  processes  are  grad- 
ually getting  settled  into  legal  expressions  of 
general  consent. 

The  second  phenomenon  is  the  desire  for 
uniform  laws  in  the  several  states  of  the  Union. 
This  movement  is  an  outcome  of  the  desire 


COMPETITION  BETWEEN  STATES     127 

to  regulate  monopolies  and  to  promote  rea- 
sonable competition.  Under  the  fixed  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  labor  problems 
must  be  solved  by  legislation  in  the  several 
states.  Since  all  the  important  questions 
concerning  labor,  corporations,  and  inter- 
state transportation  are  new  since  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  was  written, 
they  have  had  to  be  dealt  with  so  far  as  pos- 
sible by  the  several  states.  Under  the  differ- 
ing laws  of  different  states,  the  conditions  of 
production  in  many  industries  were  not  the 
same  in  one  state  as  in  another,  or  in  others. 
Fair  competition  in  an  industry  carried  on  in 
several  states  was  therefore  embarrassed.  A 
state  which  desired  to  adopt  some  humane 
legislation  which  would  increase  the  cost  of 
production  in  one  of  its  industries  had  to  con- 
sider whether  that  industry  could  endure  such 
legislation,  when  the  same  industry  in  other 
states  would  not  be  so  burdened.  The  prog- 
ress of  humane  legislation  has  been  retarded 
to  a  serious  degree  by  this  difficulty.  The 
competition  between  the  states  for  the  pecu- 


128  IN   GOVERNMENT 

niaiy  advantage  to  be  reaped  from  granting 
charters  or  acts  of  incorporation  has  distinctly 
injured  American  legislation  concerning  cor- 
porations. The  advent  of  the  automobile 
brought  into  public  view  one  of  the  incon- 
veniences of  independent  action  by  diflFerent 
states  on  the  same  subject.  Some  states  rec- 
ognize the  licenses  granted  by  other  states, 
but  some  do  not — hence,  grave  inconveniences 
for  the  owners  of  a  vehicle  which  in  some 
regions  can  easily  pass  three  or  four  state 
boundaries  in  a  day.  The  demand  for  uni- 
form legislation  means  an  effort  to  get  round 
the  rigidity  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  which  was  written  a  hundred  and 
twenty  years  ago,  and  the  rigidity  of  many 
of  the  state  constitutions,  some  of  which  go 
into  such  details  that  progressive  legislation 
IS  made  difficult.  Sound  collective  action 
against  monopoly  and  in  favor  of  rational 
competition  will  be  almost  impossible  through 
state  legislation,  unless  the  doctrine  of  uni- 
form state  legislation  comes  to  prevail.  It 
is  only  through  a  well-informed  public  opin- 


COLLECTIVISM  CONSTRUCTIVE 


y 


ion,  vigorously  expressed,  all  over  the  coun- 
try, that  such  a  uniformity  can  be  attained. 
If  attained,  it  will  be  a  great  triumph  of  na- 
tional public  opinion  over  individualistic  state 
opinion. 

We  have  now  demonstrated  the  rapid  de- 
velopment Qf_collectivism ^t_the  expense  of 
individualknr  in  three  great  departments  of 
personal  and  social  activity — industries,  edu- 
cation, and  government.  The  development 
has  been  constructive,  not  destructive,  inev- 
itable in  consequence  of  other  profound  so- 
cial and  industrial  changes,  beneficial  in  the 
present,  and  hopeful  for  the  future.  It  tends 
neither  to  anarchy  nor  to  despotism.  Its 
theory  is  accurately  stated  in  such  accepted 
sayings  as  these:  "Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself;  "As  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  to  you  do  ye  also  to  them  likewise'*; 
"Nothing  human  is  foreign  to  me";  "We  do 
hold  ourselves  straightly  tied  to  all  care  of 
each  other's  good,  and  of  the  whole  by  every 
one,  and  so  mutually";  "Each  for  all,  and  all 
for  each."     Its  object  is  that  stated  in  the 


I30  IN   GOVERNMENT 

preamble  of  the  Federal  Constitution — "To 
promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the 
blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our 
posterity." 


INDEX 

Administrative  capacity,  increase  of,  83-4. 
Agricultural  instruction,  56-9. 
American  colleges,  wider  instruction  in,  44-5. 
Associations,  multiplication  of,  23-5,  116-8. 
Associations  of  employers,  rise  of,  15.  ^ 

"Big  business,"  defined,  108;  government  super- 
vision of,  109;  tends  to  monopoly,  106-8. 

Boston,  sewer  system  of,  105-6;  water-supply  of, 
105-6. 

Building  laws  in  cities,  30-1. 

Business  facilities,  new,  88. 

Canadian  Industrial  Disputes  Investigation  Act,  33.         y 

Careers  based  on  capacities,  45-6.  ^r 

Centralization  of  government  promotes  collectivism,  9. 

City  government  a  business,  97. 

Civilization  must  override  barbarism,  54. 

Collective  action  inevitable,  99. 

Collectivism  constructive,  129;  gains  of,  22-3;  influ- 
ences promoting,  7-8;  in  housing,  27;  its  effects  on 
education,  81-3;    not  socialism,  2-7;    rise  of,   7;  y 
through  trade  agreements,  21;  vs.  individualism,  iv^ 

CoUectivist  doctrines,  some,  5,  129. 

Comenius,  things  and  words,  51-2. 

Competition,  bad  kinds  of,  18;  the  desirable,  19;  the 
efforts  to  suppress,  17;   value  of,  16-8. 
131 


132  INDEX 


Concentration  of  population  promotes  collectivism,  8, 
99-100. 

Concrete  illustration,  66. 

Conservation  a  collective  movement,  118-20. 

Contagion  and  individualism,  103. 

Cornell's,  Ezra,  conception  of  a  university,  44. 

Corporation  ownership,  advantages  of,  iio-i. 

Corporations,  collective  forces,  15,  125;  diffuse  prop- 
erty, 15. 

Craftsmanship  in  education,  67. 

Dangers  of  indiscriminate  admission  of  aliens,  53. 

Education  a  collective  interest,  47-8;  individualistic, 
43-7,  50-1;  main  objects  of,  50;  should  be  life- 
long, 69. 

Educational  reform  must  be  collective,  64. 

Educational  system  should  be  modified,  65-6. 

Educational  test  for  suffrage,  53. 

Eminent  domain,  applied  in  education,  74-5;  in  gov- 
ernment, 120-3. 

Employers'  associations  indispensable,  15;  resist 
imion  monopolies,  20;  restrict  employer's  liberty, 
20-1. 

English  social  betterment,  36. 

English  tenants'  societies,  methods  of,  27-30. 

Expectation  of  progress,  125. 

Expert,  the  day  of  the,  78-80,  92. 

Factory  system  gregarious,  40-1. 
Federal  functions,  new,  87-8,  93-4. 
Franklin,  an  individualist,  6. 


INDEX 


^32, 


General  Education  Board,  57. 

Government  ownership,  doubtful  benejBt  of,  109-11; 

work,  novel,  86-8. 
Government  touches  the  individual  citizen,  88. 
Governmental    changes    in    United    States,    11 2-3; 

methods,  defects  of,  iii. 

Herbart's  doctrine  of  interest,  63. 

Housing  associations,  25;  influence  of,  24-5. 

Individual  less  independent,  89-90. 
y  Individual  responsibiHty,  relief  from,  37. 

Individualism,  early  American,   5-6;    in  education, 
43-7,  50-1;  vs.  collectivism,  i. 

Industrial  betterment,  25. 

Industrial  education,  hope  of,  62. 

Industrial  individualism,  revival  of,  39-41;  individu- 
alists, 41. 

Industrial  training  in  public  schools,  59. 

'  Jeflterson,  an  individualist,  6;  educational  ideal  of,  44. 

Labor  legislation,  extent  of,  36;   justification  of,  37; 

rise  of  in  England,  34. 
Large  employers,  changes  in  status  of,  41-2. 
Learning  by  doing,  49. 
Liberties,  sacrificed  to  imionism,  12-4. 
Life-career  motive  in  education,  45 ;  Locke's  view  of ,  52. 
''Local  government"  inadequate,  105-6. 
Local  interests,  expansion  of,  91. 

Merit  system  of  appointment  indispensable,  113. 
Monopoly  desired  by  unions,  17-8. 


134  INDEX 


Monopolies  sought  by  unions,  14. 

Montaigne's  essentials  in  education,  49-50;  ideal  edu- 
cation, 44. 

Motives  in  education,  62-4. 

Mt.  Desert  householders,  past  conditions,  89;  present 
conditions,  90. 

Municipal  functions,  new,  86-7;  97-9. 

New  enactments,  multitude  of,  124-8. 

Paine,  Thomas,  an  individualist,  6. 

Pestalozzi,  fundamental  principle  of,  60;  his  method 
in  education,  61. 

Playground  teachers  indispensable,  74. 

Preventive  medicine  and  collectivism,  102. 

Professions,  improvement  of,  77;  independence  of, 
76;  new  restrictions  of,  77. 

Public  health  preserved  by  collective  means,  101-6. 

Public  opinion,  the  greatest  collective  force,  31-2,  38, 
128. 

Public  recreation  indispensable,  71-2;  open-air  facili- 
ties for,  73. 

Public  reservations,  75. 

Public  water-supplies,  collective  provisions,  loo-i. 

Publicity  in  business,  secured  by  government,  109; 
the  remedy  for  abuses,  32. 

Quarantines,  collective  provisions,  104. 

Roman  Catholic  church,  71-2. 

Schoolhouses  as  social  centres,  68-71. 
Secondary  schools,  coUectivist  agencies,  56. 


INDEX  135 


Secrecy  a  mischief  in  industries,  finance,  and  legisla- 
tion, 32. 

Social  betterment,  English,  36. 

Social  centres  in  schoolhouses,  68-71. 

Socialism,  characteristic  doctrines  of,  2;  effects  of 
such  doctrines,  3-5. 

"Sports,"  human,  development  of,  46-7. 

State  functions,  new,  95-7. 

State  imiversities,  54-5. 

Taxation,  new  uses  of,  12 1-2;  effects  of,  123. 

Tenants'  societies,  English,  27-30. 

Tendencies,  two  opposite  social,  i. 

Trades-union  doctrines,  12;  obligations,  12-3. 

Trades-unionism,  rise  of,  in  England,  lo-i;  in  the 
United  States,  11-2;  seeks  monopoly,  14. 

Transmission  of  education,  65. 

Trusts,  general  aim  of,  16;  monopolistic  combina- 
tions, 16. 

Uniform  state  legislation  demanded,  124-8;  desirable 
but  diflficult,  127-8. 

Union  rules  impair  liberty,  13. 

Universal  education,  effects  of,  84-5. 

United  States  postoffice  a  collective  force,  115;  pro- 
tective use  of,  116;  vicious  use  of,  114-5. 

Utilitarianism  in  education,  49,  66. 

Variety  in  education  indispensable  in  a  democracy, 

65-8. 
Voluntary  associations  wield  collective  forces,  11 7-8. 

Workmen's  Compensation  Acts,  34-6. 


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